The TPU UK Clubhouse

[Tatty_Two]

Im so tempted by this....

Think I will get one this week, I was going for a GTX770 but at this price it would be foolish to miss out I think.

 

[RCoon]

it would be foolish to miss out I think.

But I don't want to be a fool!

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Think I will get one this week, I was going for a GTX770 but at this price it would be foolish to miss out I think.

I might even get 2 for crossfire

::edit::

On second thoughts, it seems that it has reliability issues... http://www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125500

 

[Tatty_Two]

I might even get 2 for crossfire

::edit::

On second thoughts, it seems that it has reliability issues... http://www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125500

Scary! I read through the comments on the link at Newegg and then did some digging, it appears that there are Bios updates issued by Gigabyte to sort those earlier issues, check out here.........

http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4884#bios

 

[FreedomEclipse]

And after second thoughts....

THIS - the article refers to the 290X but Gigabyte use the same cooler on the 290OC, I think its best to steer clear, no matter how good the offer sounds. Since OCuK have so many of the cards in stock, It is my opinion that they are indeed refurbs instead of ex-display or units with damaged packaging etc etc, the usual 'B' grade stuff you get.

 

[Tatty_Two]

I think the coolers are good, it appeared to be the fan profiling that was the issue, altough I will probaly play it safe and stick with a 770!

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I would have gone with the 770, but the problem i have with that is its a 2GB card. I was honestly going to jump on the 290OC's till i read up about the problems. The only real choice for me is the windforce 780Ti for £399 but that doesnt provide as much performance as 2 290C cards in Crossfire for more or less the same money. Second option would be for me to side grade and grab 2 280X's on the cheap

 

[ne6togadno]

And after second thoughts....

THIS - the article refers to the 290X but Gigabyte use the same cooler on the 290OC, I think its best to steer clear, no matter how good the offer sounds. Since OCuK have so many of the cards in stock, It is my opinion that they are indeed refurbs instead of ex-display or units with damaged packaging etc etc, the usual 'B' grade stuff you get.

i got my windforce 290x 2 weeks ago and i havnt seen problems with cooling. card hit 72deg after some minutes with gpuz render test (1040mhz full time).
in games rarely hits 65+
in game (ESO mostly) core clock plays up and down quite a lot, but i dont see any shuttering exept in WoT and it is rather caused by ping issues of the game then card throttling (edit: had same issues with 7970).
if you guys want i can make you performace log with gpuz and upload it for you.

ps environmenal temps are 27-30 (wife crys she is cold when i turn ac on )

 

[FreedomEclipse]

HA - All sold out. for £200 it was too good to miss. I regret not being quicker to make a decision.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

well speak of the devil.... I wanted some 4GB 770s for a side grade but they only had 2GB ones, but now they have some!!!!

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BG-353-GI&groupid=595&catid=683 Price is pretty good!!


::EDIT::

Secondly, Im starting to wonder why they have so many B grade Gigabyte cards to sell in the first place..... Something cant be right.

 

[RCoon]

Am I the only person that finds the Parvum Systems cases horribly overpriced? I mean, they're made out of acrylic. I have some pretty heft and expensive laser cutting machinery at work, which I could essentially use to make a copy, and the materials would literally cost a quarter of the price. For £125, I expect an ATX case make of steel or alluminium! Seems like a bit of a ripoff to me, just to support a new enterprising business, trying to make money on something that actually costs, and is worth very little. If they made the case of better materials besides acryllic, it might be worth it. But I look over at my SG08 which cost about the same, and is made of solid rigid metal, and would probably kill something if it fell from great height, as opposed to shattering into plasticky pieces!

As for Gigabyte GPU's, they're fine in my experience, had a fair few, only one that broke was my fault. Could be that their 290 batch had a bad manufacturing process.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Am I the only person that finds the Parvum Systems cases horribly overpriced? I mean, they're made out of acrylic. I have some pretty heft and expensive laser cutting machinery at work, which I could essentially use to make a copy, and the materials would literally cost a quarter of the price. For £125, I expect an ATX case make of steel or alluminium! Seems like a bit of a ripoff to me, just to support a new enterprising business, trying to make money on something that actually costs, and is worth very little. If they made the case of better materials besides acryllic, it might be worth it. But I look over at my SG08 which cost about the same, and is made of solid rigid metal, and would probably kill something if it fell from great height, as opposed to shattering into plasticky pieces!

As for Gigabyte GPU's, they're fine in my experience, had a fair few, only one that broke was my fault. Could be that their 290 batch had a bad manufacturing process.

£130 for a M/ATX? no thanks, cheaper options available, even if a little less classy.

Ive just spent more than 1hr trying to strip my laptop down to replace the lousy CMOS battery. Really HP??? Make it piss easy to replace the hard drive, ram & wifi card but make it impossible to get to the CMOS battery unless the entire laptop was dismantled and striped down to the motherboard?

Id rather pay £30 to have a tech do it for me but then again i hope to be rid of this laptop soon enough. Its just too weak for my tastes.

 

[RCoon]

£130 for a M/ATX? no thanks, cheaper options available, even if a little less classy.

Ive just spent more than 1hr trying to strip my laptop down to replace the lousy CMOS battery. Really HP??? Make it piss easy to replace the hard drive, ram & wifi card but make it impossible to get to the CMOS battery unless the entire laptop was dismantled and striped down to the motherboard?

Id rather pay £30 to have a tech do it for me but then again i hope to be rid of this laptop soon enough. Its just too weak for my tastes.

What are the specs? We have a bunch of Samsung Core2's and they run crazy good if you just stick a nice Samsung Evo 128 in them. Really gives slow machines on 2.5" HDD's a boost.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

What are the specs? We have a bunch of Samsung Core2's and they run crazy good if you just stick a nice Samsung Evo 128 in them. Really gives slow machines on 2.5" HDD's a boost.

Pretty much

Was looking at getting me one of them 13.3' XMG P303 gaming laptops for about £600-800. It doesnt need to have the fastest CPU or GPU but something considerably better then what I currently have would be nice. Though with that being said trying to top an AMD E-350 isnt exactly the hardest thing in the world.

 

[RCoon]

Oh god an E350, those things are pretty frightening. We have a netbook at work with one of those things in, the processor bottlenecks the SSD.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Im surprised how long ive lasted with it tbh. I think its done at least 3 years but then again I dont really take it with me everywhere i go and most of the time I just use it as a low powered download station at home. If theres a download that needs to be left overnight then i do it on my laptop.

 

[ne6togadno]

gpuz log of windforce 290x
2 cm jetflo@1200 placed on the door of the case (cm trooper non window door) sucking air out.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I usually have the fan on my side panel sucking air in but nice temps in general. Not bad for a 290X

 

[ne6togadno]

I usually have the fan on my side panel sucking air in but nice temps in general. Not bad for a 290X

that is good for reference cards.
i have fans sucking air out for both my cards (7970 dual x and windforce 290x) and for both temps are lower for about 1-2 deg then with fan suck in.
forgot to mention environmental temps are around 26-28 atm.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

My cards are non-ref obviously, but the way i have my desk set up would me that the side panel exhausts hot air right in my face since i went to ikea for some stuff.....

Apart from that ive got a bit of a weird setup. Ive got a 140x25mm fan shroud that sits between the fan and the case so the fan protrudes just a little further inside my case then its supposed to. the fan sits about less then an inch away from my GPUs so they get fed the cool air directly . I should take a pic and upload it

Not that my 680s create a whole lot of heat anyway

 

[d1nky]

killed my mobo or most likely my special 3770k on LN2 monday night

was doing everything right up to around 6.8ghz and it crashed and no longer boots! code00 and no go, no matter what!


anyone know of any v extremes around if it is mobo?

 

[ne6togadno]

My cards are non-ref obviously, but the way i have my desk set up would me that the side panel exhausts hot air right in my face since i went to ikea for some stuff.....

Apart from that ive got a bit of a weird setup. Ive got a 140x25mm fan shroud that sits between the fan and the case so the fan protrudes just a little further inside my case then its supposed to. the fan sits about less then an inch away from my GPUs so they get fed the cool air directly . I should take a pic and upload it

Not that my 680s create a whole lot of heat anyway

the only thing i hate more then warm beer is hot air in the face
my pc is on the floor with door facing to me but it is aside from the chair so fans blow at the chair side.
could you pls run render test of gpuz with your current setup, then flip fan to suck out air and run test again. i am curious what improvment fan shroud can give

killed my mobo or most likely my special 3770k on LN2 monday night
was doing everything right up to around 6.8ghz and it crashed and no longer boots! code00 and no go, no matter what!
anyone know of any v extremes around if it is mobo?

 

[RCoon]

killed my mobo or most likely my special 3770k on LN2 monday night

was doing everything right up to around 6.8ghz and it crashed and no longer boots! code00 and no go, no matter what!


anyone know of any v extremes around if it is mobo?

My friend has just finished his first class honors in biology, and because of his "experiments" with LN2 and wheat crops, he's on a murder suspect list, rather close to the top. If anyone just so happens to die with LN2 being a factor, he gets a rather worrying call in

In other news. That sucks bro. Did you at least buy intel OC insurance? Also RMA the MoBo

 

[Tatty_Two]

What you guys reckon to the performance of two 280X's in crossfire? I have just found some Sapphire DualX OC cards for £179.99 each which is a fantastic deal, these are full retail not open box or B Grade, at that price I would be happy to buy 2 and I am guessing that they might match or better a 290X at a similar price but cannot find any direct comparisions, of course if they cannot better the 290X it would make more sense to go down the single GPU route.

 

[RCoon]

280X (7970) drivers are very very mature at this stage. 2 280X's would be ideal for anything in the WQHD department. I'd hit them up.

Let's imagine 280X crossfire is only 150% effective, it still makes the 280X more powerful at 1080p: