Partner Cards: Two Radeon R9 290s And Five 290Xs, Updated

Name: Radeon R9 290 And 290X Temperatures
Author: Igor Wallossek

by Igor Wallossek February 26, 2014 at 1:00 AM

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 Bench	VRM	Gaming, Closed Case
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290	32 °C	72 °C	78 °C	60-71 °C
Gigabyte GV-R929OC-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC	34 °C	72 °C	77 °C	73-74 °C
Radeon R9 290 Reference + Arctic Accelero Extreme III	30 °C	68 °C	90 °C	72 °C
Radeon R9 290 Reference + NZXT Kraken G10 + X40	28 °C	49 °C	66 °C	49 °C

Model	Idle	Gaming, Open-Air Bench	VRM	Gaming, Closed Case
Asus R9290X-DC2OC-4GD5 R9 290X DirectCU II OC	34 °C	76 °C	92 °C	84-85 °C
Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X	35 °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 Turbo	35 °C	78 °C	70 °C	81-82 °C
MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G	34 °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

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Summary

About the author

Igor Wallossek

Igor Wallossek is a Senior Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware DE. He tests and reviews CPUs, GPUs, games and headsets.

AMD
Asus

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66 comments

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yannigr

You can write as many articles as you want about 290/290X coolers. You can write as many excuses as you want. You can continue reminding us that there was/is a problem with Hawaii every 15 days for the whole 2014. That "victory dance" that "excitement" that you found(?) AMD cheating(?) back then, all that rage against AMD, can not be unwritten.
FormatC

Quote:

all that rage against AMD

I would like to know this more precisely please... I can't found any rage in my articles, only a chip with a very high temperature density and a lot of unusable coolers because the engineers were not able to build a matching cooler for this cards. This high density will be a global problem for all next-gen chips too. Without a vapor chamber this won't work.
outlw6669

Good job on the review Tom's German team and great work from AMD's partners!

Coupled with other recent reviews, Sapphire's Tri-X OC series looks to be great cards, especially when you make a custom fan curve to further reduce idle and load noise.
I can not wait to see the 20nm updates, especially if AMD gets around to pulling a Titan with their reference coolers!
rdc85

It's here!! I'm been waiting for this review... going to read (twice) now..
FormatC

I will add in the next days more cards like Gigabyte's R9 290 (without X), the MSI R9 290X and something other (secret)
rdc85

I think this card is made/means to be WC -ed..... 290 in Kraken looks promising.. (trying imagine how good if in full water block, good radiator)
roymustang

The main problem with the 290 and 290X isn't the cooling, it's the fact that bitcoin and litecoin miners have driven the price of these cards up by $100-150; to the point where they are no longer a good deal at all.I was waiting for the custom cooled 290s to come out to upgrade my GTX 670 but now I may just wait for the next cards and maybe stick with nVidia.
Phillip Wager

i want so badly the 290 to go back to 400 bucks cuz that is like my hard limit on a video card ive been waiting but i don't think i can wait much longer and i guess i'll just get a 770. i'm even willing to put up with the reference coolers bah.
hytecgowthaman

Sapphire wins in this competition now !!!
patrick47018

"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. " Spelling mistake, on topic I like the Sapphire Toxic's design and performance.
bustapr

yes, bitcoin miners made these cards prices skyrocket. its really made these cards non viable upgrade for some compared to the competitions cards. which is a pain since these were the best cards at launch. Either bitcoin prices crash or nvidia comes up with a competitor to GCN. these prices are getting ridiculous.
Jan Mortensen

The Price is still steady here in Denmark...But with 25% VAT this just mean that now you guys are getting to pay European prices for once
cpm1984

The peak power draws on these cards are scary (way over 300 watts!) but they only last 1-2 milliseconds. Does the PSU have to be rated to handle the peak levels or just the average power draw under peak load?
FormatC

1563406 said:

The peak power draws on these cards are scary (way over 300 watts!) but they only last 1-2 milliseconds. Does the PSU have to be rated to handle the peak levels or just the average power draw under peak load?

A good PSU has a lot of primary caps inside to compensate this peaks without any problem. The question should better be: What's about the life-span of this caps under this conditions? This is one of the reasons to buy a PSU with good and not with so-called "bad" caps. If you buy cheap you buy twice...

But Nvidia is not much better. I've checked this in another article:
patrick47018

482859 said:

1563406 said:

The peak power draws on these cards are scary (way over 300 watts!) but they only last 1-2 milliseconds. Does the PSU have to be rated to handle the peak levels or just the average power draw under peak load?

A good PSU has a lot of primary caps inside to compensate this peaks without any problem. The question should better be: What's about the life-span of this caps under this conditions? But Nvidia is not much better. I've checked this in another article:

FormatC your avatar gave me cancer...
FormatC

Quote:

FormatC your avatar gave me cancer...

Ok, use 8x MSAA to prevent you before edge flares
cpm1984

The peak power draws on these cards are scary (way over 300 watts!) but they only last 1-2 milliseconds. Does the PSU have to be rated to handle the peak levels or just the average power draw under peak load?
vmem

All I can say is "I think NZXT is onto something here with a $30 Kraken add-on"
Cirdan87

The graph for the Asus 290x temperature doesn't appear to match the tables. The graph shows a peak temp for gaming of around 76 degrees, while your table says it was 85 degrees. Is this an error?
Gurg

@ Roymustang" it's the fact that bitcoin and litecoin miners have driven the price of these cards up by $100-150; to the point where they are no longer a good deal at all.I was waiting for the custom cooled 290s to come out to upgrade my GTX 670 but now I may just wait for the next cards and maybe stick with nVidia"The premium at Microcenter for a 290x reference card is now only $50 at Microcenter. and at least in Denver the cards are staying in stock. Most likely the premium will go away in the next month or so.
Cirdan87

Ah, I see you've updated your tables to specify closed vs. open containment. That explains the graph.
FormatC

Quote:

The graph for the Asus 290x temperature doesn't appear to match the tables. The graph shows a peak temp for gaming of around 76 degrees, while your table says it was 85 degrees. Is this an error?

There are two values in the table - 76°C for open bench table and and 85°C for a closed midi-.case.
The graph is for open bench table
Gurg

Great review. I'll be buying a reference 290x and a Kracken G10 in a month or so when the bitcoin premium goes away ($50 over MSRP @ Microcenter now). With the lower temps both on the VRM and GPU it should have a lot of overclock room available. I all ready have a Kuhler 620 from a previous "RedMod" that will work with the Kracken. Note, this review was run at a much more reasonable 72º room temp.
Tree_Hugger

FormatC, can you give more info on the r9 290 with the G10 + X40 like vrm temps and noise?