r9 290: Powercolor, XFX or Sapphire

[christoph_789]

Hi
I was looking forward to buy an AMD r9 290. But I don't know which one I should take.

The Powercolor PCS+ is priced at 349€. Some test say it is loud under load but stays very cool and sometimes have coil whine.

The XFX Double Dissipation is also priced at 349€. It should be very silent but gets really hot.

The Sapphire Tri-X costs 369€. I should be silent and cool under load but hearable in idle. And it is a bit more expensive.

I live under the roof, so in summer I have always above 30°C in my room. So I need a good, but silent cooler.
Which one of those cards should I take?

 

[Kaynar]

Probably the Sapphire.

All three options are very good and with a 30c ambient, you will hear all of them under load (fans will be spinning around 40-55% depending on games). The tri-X cooler is said to be the best and since you are paying 350Euros anyway, why not spend 20euro more to get the best one. XFX have very inconsistent performance because of poor QC, some cards will be great while others will have cooling issues (cause the cooler is not properly positioned on the card).

In any case, it is best to install a monitoring program such as MSI Afterburner or Sapphire Trix to control the fan profile your self. The biggest problem with XFX is their bios fan profiles let the card get too hot before starting to ramp up the fan speed in order to advertise their card is more silent. Ideally you want the card to be below 75c-80c. All 3 cards are going to perform approximately on same temps and noise, and your PC Case plays a big role in the final result for thermal and acoustics.

 

[christoph_789]

I controll the fan speed of my current gtx 560 too, so I am not new to that.
How low can I set the fan speed of the sapphire Tri-X? I just know from my 560 that i can't set it under 40%(still silent in idle ).

 

[cookiemonster]

Hi christoph_789 I have just installed the Sapphire R9 290 TRI-X OC 4GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card and I am very pleased with the card both in power and sound I like you had other choices but I have no regrets in going for the Sapphire, as for the fans I use TRIXX.

 

[christoph_789]

Then I'll go with the sapphire. It seems to be the best card.

Thanks for your fast answers.

 

[Kaynar]

20% is the minimum for most AMD coolers, custom or not. The cooler should be totally silent under 40%.

 

[GhostRyder]

I personally like the PowerColor PCS+ for some decent overclocking and nice coolers. The Sapphire Tri-X have great coolers but are not as good at the overclocking realm so if your just wanting something to be quiet and silent the Tri-X might be a better option.

 

[buildzoid]

I personally like the PowerColor PCS+ for some decent overclocking and nice coolers. The Sapphire Tri-X have great coolers but are not as good at the overclocking realm so if your just wanting something to be quiet and silent the Tri-X might be a better option.

Why aren't they equally good is the PCS+ binned better? because the VRMs are the same power output wise and even Elpida ICs with good tweaking will get 1600+ mhz OCs.

 

[GhostRyder]

Why aren't they equally good is the PCS+ binned better? because the VRMs are the same power output wise and even Elpida ICs with good tweaking will get 1600+ mhz OCs.

Edit: I was wrong about the PCB's
However the PCS+ seem to be better binned chips from PowerColor resulting in better overclocks from what ive seen.

PCS+ is to PowerColor like Lightning is to MSI. Now the MSI is the best, but I mean that they add some better powerphase, components, and bin the chips to deliver a much better gaming experience and overclocking potential. The Powercolor Turbo duo is more a competitor to the Sapphire Tri-X because they are not upgraded boards except mostly in the cooling.

 

[christoph_789]

I took the Tri-x because I want a quiet cooler and I won't overclock in the near future (the card has enough performance for me), so I think it will be the best choice for me.

 

[Durvelle27]

My vote definitely goes for the Tri-X

 

[Tallencor]

Always had fantastic luck with my sapphire 7870 xt. Holding 1200 core for over a year no problems at all. The mem is another story no room there.
Good luck with your choice OP.

 

[buildzoid]

Partially because like you said they are binned chips, they have a 5+1+1 (7) Power Phase for the board, and normally contains Hynix memory which is also better at overclocking than Elpida. The Tri-X normally uses just the standard 5+1 power phase which just means the card sometimes does not get as clean of energy as the PowerColor does which can lead to better overclocks (Not by much mind you, but I heard more Powercolors exceed 1150 on the core easily than that of the sapphires).

PCS+ is to PowerColor like Lightning is to MSI. Now the MSI is the best, but I mean that they add some better powerphase, components, and bin the chips to deliver a much better gaming experience and overclocking potential. The Powercolor Turbo duo is more a competitor to the Sapphire Tri-X because they are not upgraded boards except mostly in the cooling.

Both the PCS+ and Tri-X use the stock PCB. They both have 5 phases to the core, 1 phase for auxiliary and 1 more for VRAM. Sapphire jsut doesn't find the auxiliary phase important enough to mention.

Spoiler: PCB Pictures

The sapphire PCB

PCS+ PCB

Since there are NO CUSTOM PCB R9 290 models other than the 6+1+1 phase Vapor-X and 6+2+2 Asus DCUII go for the Tri-X or Vapor-X since they are gonna be the quietest.

 

[GhostRyder]

Both the PCS+ and Tri-X use the stock PCB. They both have 5 phases to the core, 1 phase for auxiliary and 1 more for VRAM. Sapphire jsut doesn't find the auxiliary phase important enough to mention.

Yea I realized that later but forgot to edit my post after pulling up a diagram of the PCB's and noticing that the 290's reference did contain a 5+1+1. Hard to find reviews on the 290's over the 290X cards because most sites talk turkey with the 290X variants of the same card. My bad on that, however I do stand by the statement that the PCS+ are normally the better binned chips and seem to stand a bit higher overclocking generally speaking.

You were right though, my mistake.

 

[Durvelle27]

Edit: I was wrong about the PCB's
However the PCS+ seem to be better binned chips from PowerColor resulting in better overclocks from what ive seen.

PCS+ is to PowerColor like Lightning is to MSI. Now the MSI is the best, but I mean that they add some better powerphase, components, and bin the chips to deliver a much better gaming experience and overclocking potential. The Powercolor Turbo duo is more a competitor to the Sapphire Tri-X because they are not upgraded boards except mostly in the cooling.

I have to disagree. My best clocker was an reference card from Sapphire

Sapphire R9 290 Reference (1215/1500)
Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X (1160/1450)
XFX R9 290 Reference (1150/1450)
AMD R9 290X Reference (1190/1500)

 

[GhostRyder]

I have to disagree. My best clocker was an reference card from Sapphire

Sapphire R9 290 Reference (1215/1500)
Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X (1160/1450)
XFX R9 290 Reference (1150/1450)
AMD R9 290X Reference (1190/1500)

Well I never said that the Sapphires were bad, just that in general aspect because the PCS+ are choice cuts if you will of the chips. When playing the lottery with chips, any chip can become a golden chip if you hit the right silicon. My R9 290X cards only get up to 1150 stable on all 3 versus a friend of mine bought one and got 1200 easily as well (I believe his is an Asus, mine are PowerColor). I was specifically referencing which version are binned better, the Tri-X are not normally binned as well on the normal side, however the Sapphire Vapor-X have shown to be the PCS+ of Sapphires divion (The Choice chips).

 

[christoph_789]

I just installed the card and everthing works fine. The card is silent in idle and under load
But GPU-Z and Afterbruner show me a constant temperatur of 60°C in idle and under load it goes to ~73°
Is this a bug or is this card really that hot?

 

[buildzoid]

I just installed the card and everthing works fine. The card is silent in idle and under load
But GPU-Z and Afterbruner show me a constant temperatur of 60°C in idle and under load it goes to ~73°
Is this a bug or is this card really that hot?

The quite BIOS for my WF3 runs fans at 500RPM in idle and the card gets to 70C° so it is normal and you should just run a custom fan profile that runs at 1000RPM at idle and you'll be fine.

 

[christoph_789]

And is it normal that the card always runs with the same core clock?
I just know from my previous GTX 560 that it clocks down when I don't use it

 

[christoph_789]

problem solved
forgot that a youtube video is running in the background
now the clocks go down and the temperatur is below 50°C

 

[Lopez0101]

Hawaii chips don't hit themal throttling until 94C. AMD has been on record saying it's perfectly fine.

 

[buildzoid]

Hawaii chips don't hit themal throttling until 94C. AMD has been on record saying it's perfectly fine.

Voltages drop depending on temps so while clock stays constant till 94C° voltae gets lowered by 200mv before you hit 94C° which has a tendency to crash OCs.

 

[Lopez0101]

Hmm, some games don't like OC's either it seems. I can get an OC to run fine in Heaven or 3DMark, then work fine in BF4, but then it crashes in other games.

Hopefully getting mine on water will improve things enough. Would also allow me to put the side panel on my case without the card cooking, haha.

 

[Durvelle27]

Hmm, some games don't like OC's either it seems. I can get an OC to run fine in Heaven or 3DMark, then work fine in BF4, but then it crashes in other games.

Hopefully getting mine on water will improve things enough. Would also allow me to put the side panel on my case without the card cooking, haha.

Are you doing increasments

 

[Lopez0101]

Increasements? Increments? The game that crashes the most is STALKER: Lost Alpha. It doesn't like anything over 1300 memory and it'll work fine at 1067, then crash for whatever reason. restart computer, crashes quickly, drop to 1057 and it's fine. Makes no sense to me. Doesn't really matter what the voltage is either.,+25 or +60.