Fixing The Radeon R9 290 With Arctic's Accelero Xtreme III

Features
By Igor Wallossek
published

One of the best things we did for our Radeon R9 290 review was pop off AMD's reference cooler and attach Arctic's Accelero Xtreme III. Today, we show you how we did this, we dive deeper into the results, and ultimately recommend the aftermarket heat sink.

Arctic's Accelero Xtreme III does exactly what it's supposed to do: it cools. But it does that job so effectively and quietly that you end up wondering if AMD's Radeon R9 290 is even the same card in your PC.

We'd like Arctic to include three additional full-sized sinks and one lower-profile RAM sink for the Radeon R9 290 and 290X. It might also want to consider increasing the contact area of its VRM coolers. 

Of course, the Accelero wasn't designed for the R9 290, and Arctic doesn't even try claiming AMD's latest is officially compatible. But after our experimentation, the results were so convincing and the list of alternative options so short that we're almost forced to recommend this modification.

This isn't just an endorsement of the Accelero Xtreme III, but a must-have fix for anyone who can't wait for AMD's board partners to start selling Radeon R9 290 and 290X cards. You'll spend an extra $75 on the heat sink and fans, but save money on mandatory headphones, we suppose. Additionally, the performance you'll pick up due to the Hawaii GPU running at its peak clock rate, rather than dithering down to lower frequencies, will make the reference cards look antiquated.

Our Smart Buy award goes to Arctic's cooler, which turns AMD's newest high-end cards into faster, quieter, better versions of themselves. AMD needs to take a page out of Nvidia's book. Its reference cooler shouldn't be considered reference at all. It's more of a torture device for an otherwise very capable graphics processor. Someone over there should be thanking Arctic for providing a reprieve.

Igor Wallossek
68 Comments Comment from the forums
  • rolli59
    I will wait and get the Gigabyte Windforce then I will not have to pay full price for the cooler. (just saying)
    Reply
  • MauveCloud
    I can't find anything to confirm that you tested this inside a case, and I'm curious what it does to case and cpu temps compared to the reference card, and what it does to a second gpu running in crossfire mode.
    Reply
  • CaptainTom
    I gotta say I agree with AMD's opinion that reference coolers are just there to get the job done as cheaply and consistently as possible since non-references will rule the market anyways.

    But at the end of the day reviewers are gonna continue to mark down cards for these silly things for whatever reason. AMD might as well just make the reference coolers at least as good as SAPPHIRE's Dual-X so that everyone shuts up...
    Reply
  • sha7bot
    I want AMD and NVIDIA to start selling their boards without a cooler. I can buy a waterblock from any number of retailers, but I can't get the damned GPU. Discount the boards and sell them OEM to us consumers.

    Also, try and make your layout a standard so I don't have to keep buying after-market coolers or blocks. I can just move them from board to board.
    Reply
  • FormatC
    @MauveCloud
    I've proofed this construction in my Corsair Obsidian 900D and it works as described, I had to turn on my case fans but only @800-900 rpm. To test a crossfire setup I would have to destroy two cards - sorry, but this was too expensive for me. One modified card is ok, but I cant kill all my samples :D
    Reply
  • ingtar33
    that 1150 clock speed is actually on the low side. on several other forums i frequent people are hitting mid 1300's pretty consistently with aftermarket air coolers, and 1400s on water.

    it seems the r9-290x is pretty much identical clock for clock to the 780ti... so putting a non-reference cooler onto it is almost mandatory; because when it's not temp throttling it's pacing nvidia's $700 monster.
    Reply
  • brainrazer
    I was going to say same thing as sha7bot. Overall though I hope one day we can buy a gpu and fan/cooler in drop it in the Mobo socket like a cpu. Hell even have multiple sockets in a row to take up less space at the end of the mobo to give room for pci slot devices. It always sucks having to decide between these graphics cards or "this" card and a sound card or ssd.
    Reply
  • horaciopz
    Maybe, later on the road Accelero will launch a R9 290 version of this cooler as they did with the HD 7900 version.

    Also, look that, that cooler is barely spinning. You can squish more of it, that would be even more noticable in performance gains!
    Reply
  • s3anister
    "Obviously, if you spend $400 on a new Radeon R9 290 and immediately take it apart, your warranty is void."

    Are all the Vendor's cards like this? If I remember correctly Sapphire used to allow (or still does) people to take the stock cooler off to attach a waterblock without it voiding the warranty.
    Reply
  • bemused_fred
    Blimey, that is so much fuss to put together, not to mention the fact that it voids your warranty.. AMD have really, really shot themselves in the foot by not offering after-market cooling at launch.
    Reply