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They won't ship Hawaii to Hawaii?

Thanks, but this looks like a better option, even considering waiting time:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FXLMMK2/?ta ... PDKIKX0DER

And the NDA has expired and reviews are up:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7457/the- ... 90x-review
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-C ... ing-TITANs
http://www.techspot.com/review/727-radeon-r9-290x/
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/ra ... rks,1.html

Edit: I am fairly impressed. It is definitely not a "Titan killer" as the AMD's marketing shills were hyping it to be but should still be fun to play with and will provide an objective reference point for me - I prefer to trust my own results rather than throwing subjective benchmark graphs at each other, especially when it comes to multiplayer games (especially considering the fact that most of the "review sites" do not know how to properly benchmark multiplayer games). Think I'm gonna do it:



B.t.w, this price already includes a BF4 copy. Which should come in handy for "testing out" certain "aim assist" applications

I like that a single card is measured to be as loud as two GTX770's... AMD has failed on acoustics, yet again. Let's not speak of 'Uber' mode.

And yeah, that part is actually important .

Well, yea, that's what you get when you put a totally archaic "blower"-style cooler on top of your flagship device The Titan is also pretty noticeable when working at full tilt. Luckily you can buy an optional non-"blower" cooler for it which significantly decreases the noise and temperatures. Hopefully there will be similar options for this AMD card.

Man, I'm not a fan of loud GPU's (getting old. Hate noise.) Hopefully there's a kill it with fire fan controller that idles the fan down while on the desktop.

I usually solve bad stock HS builds by buying a version from HiS. They know how to make a proper GPU fan.

JohnC wrote:

Edit: I am fairly impressed. It is definitely not a "Titan killer" as the AMD's marketing shills were hyping it to be.

Think I'm gonna do it:

At half the price and better performance than TITAN - Plus a lot of people buying it including you = its a TITAN Killer at-least for me.

"Better performance than Titan" - I would not say so. According to benchmarks of last-gen games on various sites (I do not consider TR's results as "most valid") it performs about equally - sometimes better, sometimes worse, at the expense of significant increase in power consumption and noise output
"Half the price" - you should use your glasses more often, there is no shame in doing that, especially when no one is at home
"A lot of people buying it, including you" - what's "a lot"? Am I "a lot"?

Enjoy your New card...I really want one to replace my 560 ti sli setup....I have my 560s ramp to 100% fan at 55c so it cannot be any louder then those, besides when I game I have Headphones on that block out a good 25-30db. Besides Arctic coolling will be coming out with a cooler soon that will tame that noise for around 75$. Heck it will probably let it overclock a wee bit and stay cool and quiet.

I still wish Arctic Cooling would make a couple heavy duty blower style coolers...I know i said it before "even a triple slot blower"

EK has four new full cover water blocks already for the 290x. I am really interested to see if running one on water will let you overclock it much. also uber load temps.

Blower cooler would be useless due to all these non-removable video ports... Something like this, however, would be nice:
http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/vga/5 ... tml?c=2182

JohnC wrote:

Blower cooler would be useless due to all these non-removable video ports... Something like this, however, would be nice:
http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/vga/5 ... tml?c=2182

I want to see custom blowers. Someone has to know that there's an underserved market for an R9 290X with a decent blower solution.

That, or I'd like to see someone do an integrated water-cooler style solution, especially if they could do it in a dual 140mm form factor .

You do. I don't.

JohnC wrote:

You do. I don't.

I want to put two or three in a compact ATX enclosure, and have it be relatively quiet without having to run a custom water loop. You?

I am not interested in any type of water cooling and I would rather not put up with increased noise and temperatures which are inevitable when using "blowers" on "flagship" cards with 2 DVI ports. I would rather use a "free-flow", multi-fan coolers like EVGA's ACX or the Arctic Cooler's version, which objectively decrease the noise and GPU temperatures (compared to "blower" coolers on such cards) regardless of the case size or quality of airflow inside the case. I did my own tests to come to this conclusion. You?

Airmantharp wrote:

I'd like to see someone do an integrated water-cooler style solution, especially if they could do it in a dual 140mm form factor .

That would really be a niche product...
http://www.directron.com/vcggtx580xpblc ... e=10252013
...and it looks funny, too.

I'd be perfectly happy buying one with an integrated full cover waterblock and standard G1/4 ports for a reasonable premium.

John thats why I said a triple slot blower.....

Anyways Arctic Cooling has That Hybrid AIO water cooler 120mm radiator with a blower style fan to cool the VRM's
I am sure it would probably keep that cards core around 60c...perhaps lower since a lot of video card heat come from VRM's, memory etc. I am guessing around 70% comes from the core alone.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

Airmantharp wrote:

I'd like to see someone do an integrated water-cooler style solution, especially if they could do it in a dual 140mm form factor .

That would really be a niche product...
http://www.directron.com/vcggtx580xpblc ... e=10252013
...and it looks funny, too.

I had imagined it without the blower altogether- but that solution certainly works. And it is definitely ugly.

So anywayz, I've received my XFX 290x, so far it seems to be working (which is awesome, because I got it from Newegg and the card is not an EVGA's product, so returns/replacements can be extremely annoying for such stuff). I've played few games, ran few apps like Folding@Home (spoiler: it "folds" noticeably slower, even with x17 WU's), etc. Is it a "Titan killer"? That depends on your personal definition. Because I can afford to buy (and keep) both cards I'd say "definitely not". It plays all games equally well at the particular resolution and configuration that I currently use (in terms of actual numbers it is slightly worse) BUT it is more loud (not by a lot but noticeably so) and runs more hot while drawing more power. It also needs the BIOS switch to stay in non-default "Uber" position in order for the card to consistently stay at claimed 1GHz clocks. I also do not appreciate XFX putting tiny "warranty void if removed" stickers all over the top of the screws on the back of the card and making their policy regarding "modding" extremely vague and ambiguous (it basically says "we may allow you to change heatsink by yourself, but you must contact us first for an approval, which is not guaranteed"). It also annoys me that there aren't many good overclocking/monitoring tools available for it, basically all you have is "MSI Afterburner" thingie which is kinda deficient in some ways (and I never use the "GPU-Z" buggy garbage for anything).

The price is definitely attractive point about this card, BUT considering the fact that you can, for example, buy a factory-overclocked GTX780, with a much better multi-fan cooler pre-installed, which would run more quietly and more cool, from an awesome retailer like EVGA (or any other personal favorite retailer you might prefer), for about the same price and about same performance:



I don't really see the reason to purchase the 290x right now, especially considering a very limited current stocks... Unless you're a brain-dead fanbot who believes that Mantle/TrueAudio will be automagically embraced by every major game developer for all future titles, or you're just a marketing shill... Or you just have some money to throw around on pointless hardware experiments

TL;DR version: AMD forced Nvidia to lower their prices. Which is the only positive thing about new Hawaii GPU's. At least for now, considering its inefficient stock "blower" cooler, lack of Mantle-enabled games and the card's current prices.