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Partner Cards: Two Radeon R9 290s And Five 290Xs, Updated
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1. Cooling The Radeon R9 290 And 290X

AMD's reference Radeon R9 290 and 290X cooler earned our disdain once we figured out that it was causing the otherwise-impressive Hawaii GPU to operate at performance levels below the company's specification. Getting the graphics processor to deliver full performance required faster fan speeds, more noise, and ultimately higher power.

Starting back in December, partner boards with third-party coolers started showing up. No longer was it necessary to make your own modifications, like we did in Fixing The Radeon R9 290 With Arctic's Accelero Xtreme III, to maximize the performance of those once-$400 and -$550 cards. Speaking of, let's take a look at how the cards in today's update are priced now:

Radeon R9 290 (Newegg)
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290$650
Gigabyte GV-R929OC-4GD R9 290 Windforce OC
Out of stock
Radeon R9 290X (Newegg)
Asus R9290X-DC2OC-4GD5 R9 290X DirectCU II OC$730
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290XOut of stock
Gigabyte GV-R929XOC-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC$700
HIS R9 290X IceQ X² Turbo
Not Available
MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G
$700

Our colleagues in Germany began working with the uniquely-tuned offerings, hoping to find that AMD's partners were extracting just as much performance as we were able to, without the hassle of adding your own aftermarket cooler. Do they, though? That's the question we want to answer today.

In Germany, this story has been taking shape one card at a time. But now that we have it translated into English, we have a more complete picture of the partner card market, including two Radeon R9 290 cards, five R9 290X cards, the reference board with our Arctic Accelero Extreme III modification, and another home-grown configuration with NZXT's Kraken G10 and X40 bracket.

All of the Radeon R9 290X cards are set to their Quiet Mode firmware setting, since the board partners do a suitable job of cooling Hawaii without sacrificing clock rates.

Radeon R9 290 Model Overview

Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290
Radeon R9 290 + Arctic Accelero Extreme III
Radeon R9 290 + NZXT Kraken G10 + X40

Gigabyte R9 290 Windforce OC
(Update)

Radeon R9 290X Model Overview

Asus R9 290X DirectCU II OC
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X
Gigabyte R9 290X Windforce OC
HIS R9 290X IceQ X² Turbo
(Update)
MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G
(Update)

2. Technical Specifications

All of these cards are based on the same Hawaii GPU manufactured at 28 nm with either 2560 (in the case of the Radeon R9 290) or 2816 (for the Radeon R9 290X) shaders and a 512-bit memory bus. The differences between these cards, aside from their coolers, are limited to the core and memory clock frequencies.

Radeon R9 290GPU Clock MHz
(Boost)
Memory Clock
MHz
Memory Bandwidth
GB/s
Pixel Fillrate
GPixel/s
Texture Fillrate
GTexel/s
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 2901000
1300
332.8
64.0
160.0
Gigabyte GV-R929OC-4GD R9 290 Windforce OC1040
1250
320.0
66.6
166.4
Radeon R9 290 Reference + Arctic Accelero Extreme III1100
1250
320.0
70.4
176.0
Radeon R9 290 Reference + NZXT Kraken G10 + X401100
1250
320.0
70.4
176.0
Radeon R9 290XGPU Clock MHz
(Boost)
Memory Clock
MHz
Memory Bandwidth
GB/s
Pixel Fillrate
GPixel/s
Texture Fillrate
GTexel/s
Asus R9290X-DC2OC-4GD5 R9 290X DirectCU II OC1050
1350
345.6
67.2
184.8
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X1040
1300
332.8
66.6
183.0
Gigabyte GV-R929XOC-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC1040
1250
320.0
66.6
183.0
HIS R9 290X IceQ X² Turbo
1060
1350
345.6
67.8
186.6
MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G1040
1250
320
66.6
183

Of course, there’s more to the overall performance story than just the maximum GPU clock rate. As we've already seen, calling your GPU a 1000 MHz part is pointless if it cannot maintain that frequency. This is precisely the problem AMD's reference design suffers from. Once its target temperature is hit, the clock rate starts scaling back and performance follows suit.

We warmed up our various contenders and ran them in a loop while we recorded their frequencies.

R9 290 GPU Clock Frequency

R9 290X GPU Clock Frequency

3. Dimensions And Weight

The dimensions reported here don't necessarily match what you've heard from each manufacturer's official technical specifications. Rather, we measure them by hand to assure they're correct. The image and chart below should help illustrate what each measurement actually means. Auxiliary PCI Express power connectors are not included; they have to be added depending on the power plug and cable design.

Radeon R9 290Length (L)
Height (H)
Depth (D1)
Depth (D2)
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290305 mm
114 mm
38 mm
4 mm
Gigabyte GV-R929OC-4GD R9 290 Windforce OC282 mm
123 mm
38 mm
4 mm
Radeon R9 290 Reference + Arctic Accelero Extreme III320 mm
120 mm
60 mm
4 mm
Radeon R9 290XLength (L)
Height (H)
Depth (D1)
Depth (D2)
Asus R9290X-DC2OC-4GD5 R9 290X DirectCU II OC288 mm
142 mm
38 mm
4 mm
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X305 mm114 mm38 mm
4 mm
Gigabyte GV-R929XOC-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC282 mm
123 mm
38 mm
4 mm
HIS R9 290X IceQ X² Turbo297 mm
135 mm
36 mm
4 mm
MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G279 mm
120 mm
38 mm
6 mm

Graphics Card Weight

The weight of a card might be interesting if you're trying to figure out if any additional support is needed, or to calculate the amount of stress your motherboard might be under in a CrossFire-based setup.

Radeon R9 290
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 2901022 g
Gigabyte GV-R929OC-4GD R9 290 Windforce OC1040 g
Radeon R9 290 Reference + Arctic Accelero Extreme III978 g
Radeon R9 290X
Asus R9290X-DC2OC-4GD5 R9 290X DirectCU II OC1135 g
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X1022 g
Gigabyte GV-R929XOC-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC
1053 g
HIS R9 290X IceQ X² Turbo976 g
MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G1038 g
4. Gaming Power Consumption

Benchmark System And Procedure

We collaborated with HAMEG (Rohde & Schwarz) to upgrade our power consumption measurement system.

We record all channels and the corresponding oscilloscope value/curves for our measurements. The very precise and, more important, fast current clamps yield 100 mV/A, making it easy to calculate the power based on the voltage. We also record the supply voltage to multiply its value with the recorded amperage. Depending on the resolution we choose, this procedure yields a very detailed power consumption history. We generally set this to 1 ms, allowing us to capture all fluctuations attributable to AMD’s PowerTune or Nvidia’s GPU Boost technology.

Tom's Hardware Power Measurement - 1 Loop Metro Last Light - 1ms Power Draw

Measurement ProcedureNon-Contact Direct Current Measurement at the PCIe Slot
Non-Contact Direct Current Measurement at the External PCIe Power Supply
Direct Voltage Measurement 3.3 V / 12 V
Measurement Apparatus

Oscilloscope:
HAMEG HMO1024 Four-Channel Digital Oscilloscope with Memory and Ethernet Remote Control

Power Clamp:
HAMEG HZO50 (1 mA-30 A, 100 kHz DC, Resolution 1 mA)

Voltage Divider Probe:
HAMEG HZ154 (1:1, 1:10), Assorted Adapters

Digital Multimeter:
HAMEG HMC8012

Bench TableMicrocool Banchetto 101
Test Hardware

AMD FX-8350 (Piledriver), Overclocked to 4.5 GHz

Corsair H100i Compact Water Cooling Solution

16 GB (2 x 8) Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1866

Asus 990FX Sabertooth + Modified PCIe Adapter with Current Loops
Power SupplyCorsair AX860i with Modified Plugs (Pickup)

Power Consumption While Running A Gaming Loop

"How much power does a graphics card draw during gaming?" and "How much heat does it generate under load?" are the most commonly asked questions once we wrap up our analysis of 3D performance. Our testing is made as real-world as possible by measuring cards that have already been warmed up.

This high-resolution measurement shows why power supplies can be overwhelmed unless they have ample output headroom. Even if a PSU's specs suggest it should be able to handle a given card, some very brief (often less than 10 ms), but very high peaks can cause a power supply's protection circuitry to engage.

Power Consumption: Radeon R9 290

Power Consumption: Radeon R9 290X

5. Gaming Performance

Benchmark System and Software

When I wrote Seven Radeon R9 280X Graphics Cards, Rounded-Up, I made the assumption that most of our readers would know that gaming performance would correlate to clock rates, and focused most of my efforts on power, heat, and noise. We heard the feedback from that piece, though, and incorporated benchmark results into today's story.

I ran four carefully-selected titles at their highest quality settings, and then normalized and added the results. This yielded a performance index with AMD's Radeon R9 290 reference card serving as the 100-percent baseline.

CPU And CoolerIntel Core i7-3770K (Ivy Bridge) at 4.5 GHz
Corsair H100i Compact Water Cooler (Gelid GC Extreme)
MotherboardGigabyte G1. Sniper 3 (Z77 Express)
Memory32 GB (4 x 8 GB) Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR3-2133
SSD
2 x Corsair Neutron 480 GB
Power SupplyCorsair AX1200i
Operating SystemWindows 7 x64 Ultimate SP1
DriversAMD Catalyst 13.12
GeForce 331.82
BenchmarksMetro: Last Light
BioShock Infinite
Battlefield 4 (Single-Player)
Crysis 3 (DirectX 11)

We warmed up each graphics card until it reached its peak temperature, keeping us as close as possible to real-world performance and to prevent unfair advantages for either AMD or Nvidia due to artificially high boost speeds. The cards were tested on an open bench table (blue bars) and in a closed mid-tower (red bars).

6. Temperatures

We're using Metro: Last Light for our thermal benchmarks. This should be a good representation of a high-end graphics workload. As a bonus, it's incredibly repeatable and easy to loop over and over through the built-in tool.

After publishing Does Radeon R9 290X Behave Any Differently In A Closed Case?, we decided to test these cards on an open bench table and in a closed case, since we found that dropping them into the right enclosure helped lower temperatures thanks to optimized airflow.

Model
Idle
Gaming, Open-Air BenchVRM
Gaming, Closed Case
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 29032 °C
72 °C
78 °C
60-71 °C
Gigabyte GV-R929OC-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC34 °C
72 °C
77 °C
73-74 °C
Radeon R9 290 Reference + Arctic Accelero Extreme III30 °C
68 °C
90 °C
72 °C
Radeon R9 290 Reference + NZXT Kraken G10 + X4028 °C
49 °C
66 °C
49 °C
Model
Idle
Gaming, Open-Air BenchVRM
Gaming, Closed Case
Asus R9290X-DC2OC-4GD5 R9 290X DirectCU II OC34 °C
76 °C
92 °C
84-85 °C
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X35 °C
73 °C
85 °C
70-72 °C
Gigabyte GV-R929XOC-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC
Press Sample
34 °C
84 °C
86 °C
83 °C
Gigabyte GV-R929XOC-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC
Mass Production
34 °C
83 °C
87 °C
81 °C
HIS R9 290X IceQ X² Turbo35 °C
78 °C
70 °C
81-82 °C
MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G34 °C
76 °C
73 °C
75-76 °C

Temperature Graphs

These graphs slow how the temperatures change over time, influenced by the heat sink, the fan, and the firmware's fan profile. 

Asus' R9 290X DirectCU II OC has a bit of a problem; its cooler was actually designed for the larger GK110 GPU on its GeForce GTX 780 Ti board. You can see this in the image below, where two of the heat pipes don't tough Hawaii at all, and two others make partial contact.

Sapphire solves this with a group of three heat pipes that better fit AMD's GPU. The result is made clear in our testing.

Radeon R9 290 Temperatures

Radeon R9 290X Temperatures

7. Noise And Fan Speed

Noise

We first measure each graphics card's noise level in different workloads using the same studio microphone and calibration seen in our audio reviews. The microphone is positioned perpendicular to the middle of the graphics card at a distance of 50 cm.

Radeon R9 290Idle
Gaming, Open-Air BenchGaming, Closed Case
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 29031.4 dB(A)
39.4 dB(A)
40.5 dB(A)
Gigabyte GV-R929OC-4GD R9 290 Windforce OC30.9 dB(A)
39.5 dB(A)
42.7 dB(A)
Radeon R9 290 Reference + Arctic Accelero Extreme III37.8 dB(A)
37.8 dB(A)37.8 dB(A)
Radeon R9 290 Reference + NZXT Kraken G10 + X4034.2 dB(A)
37.2 dB(A)
---
Radeon R9 290XIdle
Gaming, Open-Air BenchGaming, Closed Case
Asus R9290X-DC2OC-4GD5 R9 290X DirectCU II OC32.5 dB(A)
42.3 dB(A)
44.3 dB(A)
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X32.1 dB(A)
40.9 dB(A)
42.8 dB(A)
Gigabyte GV-R929XOC-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC
Press Sample
30.9 dB(A)
41.5 dB(A)
43.6 dB(A)
Gigabyte GV-R929XOC-4GD-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC
Mass Production
30.9 dB(A)
39.6 dB(A)
43.2 dB(A)
HIS R9 290X IceQ X² Turbo31.2 dB(A)
46.2 dB(A)
48.8 dB(A)
MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G30.9 dB(A)
41.2 dB(A)
43.9 dB(A)

Fan Speed

The number, diameter, and rotational speed of the fans are mainly what determine the cooler's noise level. We present the RPM curves for each graphics card separately; we tried, and putting them into one graph is too cluttered.

Both of the models that we modded up (using Arctic's Accelero and NZXT's Kraken) were not measured. Their numbers are not comparable.

Radeon R9 290 Fan Speed

Radeon R9 290X Fan Speed

8. Video Comparison

The combination of how hot each board gets, how well its heat sink is designed, and how fast its fans spin gives each graphics card a unique acoustic signature. The audio track is taken directly from the measurement microphone, which records as we run a long loop of Metro: Last Light.

Radeon R9 290

Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290

Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X - Full Load - Gaming Loop

Gigabyte GV-R929OC-4GD R9 290 Windforce OC

Gigabyte R9 290 Windforce OC - Gaming Loop - Full Load

Radeon R9 290 Reference + Arctic Accelero Extreme III

Radeon R9 290 - Metro Last Light Gaming Loop - Arctic Accelero Xtreme III @7 Volt

Radeon R9 290X

Asus R9290X-DC2OC-4GD5 R9 290X DirectCU II OC

Asus R9 290X DirectCU II OC - Full Load - Gaming Loop

Gigabyte GV-R929XOC-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC

Gigabyte R9 290X Windforce OC - Full Load - Gaming Loop

HIS R9 290X IceQ X² Turbo

HIS R9 290X IceQ X² Turbo - Gaming Loop - Full Load

MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G

MSI R9 290X Gaming OC - Gaming Loop - Full Load

Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X

Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC- Full Load - Gaming Loop

9. Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290

Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290
Auxiliary Power Connectors
1 x eight-pin + 1 x six-pin
Connectors2 x DVI-D (Dual-Link, No analog connector)
1 x HDMI
1 x DisplayPort
Form FactorTwo Slots
Pros+ Flat
+ Relatively light for its size
+ Very quiet
Cons- Very long

Front and Back

Sides

Connectors

10. Gigabyte GV-R929OC-4GD R9 290 Windforce OC

Gigabyte GV-R929OC-4GD R9 290 Windforce OC
Auxiliary Power Connectors1 x eight-pin + 1 x six-pin
Connectors
2 x DVI-D (Dual-Link, No analog connector)
1 x HDMI
1 x DisplayPort
Form Factor
Two slots
Pros+ Flat
+ Relatively short and light
Cons
- A bit loud under full load

Front and Back

Sides

Connectors

11. Radeon R9 290 + Arctic Accelero Extreme III

Radeon R9 290 Reference + Arctic Accelero Extreme III
Auxiliary Power Connectors
1 x eight-pin + 1 x six-pin
Connectors2 x DVI-D (Dual-Link, No analog connector)
1 x HDMI
1 x DisplayPort
Form FactorTwo Slots
Pros+ Relatively light for its size
+ Both quiet and cool
+ Fast
Cons- Very long
- More work building
- Loss of warranty


Front and Back

Sides

Connectors

12. Asus R9290X-DC2OC-4GD5 R9 290X DirectCU II OC

Asus R9290X-DC2OC-4GD5 R9 290X DirectCU II OC
Auxiliary Power Connectors
1 x eight-pin + 1 x six-pin
Connectors
2 x DVI-D (Dual-Link, No analog connector)
1 x HDMI
1 x DisplayPort
Form Factor
Two Slots
Pros+ Flat
+ Relatively short
Cons
- Too hot
- Relatively loud
- Very tall

The five heat pipes aren't organized ideally; two have no contact with AMD's Hawaii GPU and two others only touch partly. Only one pipe makes complete contact with the GPU.

Front and Back

Sides

Connectors

13. HIS R9 290X IceQ X² Turbo

HIS R9 290X IceQ X² Turbo
Auxiliary Power Connectors1 x eight-pin + 1 x six-pin
Connectors2 x DVI-D (Dual-Link, No analog connector)
1 x HDMI
1 x DisplayPort
Form FactorTwo slots
Pros+ Flat
+ Fast
Cons- Very long
- Relatively loud

Front and Back

Sides

Connectors

14. Gigabyte GV-R929XOC-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC

Gigabyte GV-R929XOC-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC
Auxiliary Power Connectors
1 x eight-pin + 1 x six-pin
Connectors
2 x DVI-D (Dual-Link, No analog connector)
1 x HDMI
1 x DisplayPort
Form Factor
Two Slots
Pros+ Flat
+ Relatively short and light
Cons
- Runs somewhat warm in AMD's Quiet Mode

Front and Back

Sides

Connectors

15. MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G

MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G
Auxiliary Power Connectors1 x eight-pin + 1 x six-pin
Connectors2 x DVI-D (Dual-Link, No analog connector)
1 x HDMI
1 x DisplayPort
Form FactorTwo slots
Pros+ Flat
+ Short
+ Fast
Cons- A little loud

Front and Back

Sides

Connectors

16. Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X

Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X
Auxiliary Power Connectors
1 x eight-pin + 1 x six-pin
Connectors2 x DVI-D (Dual-Link, No analog connector)
1 x HDMI
1 x DisplayPort
Form FactorTwo Slots
Pros+ Flat
+ Relatively light for its size
+ Very quiet
Cons- Very long

Front and Back

Sides

Connectors