AMD Radeon R9 290X CrossFire

[Aerpoweron]

For 2 cards 2 bridges does not make a difference compared to 1

Yes, but i've seen treads pages long, and differnt statements from MSI and Sapphire.

With the power draw of GPUs rising, i wonder what cooling solutions will be used by the GPU manufacturers in the future.

My brother an I play in a average room on midrange computers. But it is enough to heat the room.

When i look at your specs, your pc also has a noticeable heat output under load.
Oh, where can i enter my PC specs, didn't find it in my profile.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Yes, but i've seen treads pages long, and differnt statements from MSI and Sapphire.

With the power draw of GPUs rising, i wonder what cooling solutions will be used by the GPU manufacturers in the future.

My brother an I play in a average room on midrange computers. But it is enough to heat the room.

When i look at your specs, your pc also has a noticeable heat output under load.
Oh, where can i enter my PC specs, didn't find it in my profile.

The power draw isnt rising(well in some cases). Its actually going down. 20nm GPUs should have considerable lower tdp and power draw.

 

[The Von Matrices]

The power draw isnt rising(well in some cases). Its actually going down. 20nm GPUs should have considerable lower tdp are power draw.

A more detailed explanation is that the cards' power draw are already at their limit, and unless there is a monumental advance in air cooling we won't see cards go over 300W.

20nm should theoretically bring lower power draw, but not for the reason you think. In the past a lower transistor size meant less leakage (wasted power) per transistor, which resulted in less power draw. However, the most modern silicon manufacturing processes are having trouble controlling leakage as transistor size decreases, so today leakage is more or less held constant as transistors shrink. The problem with smaller and smaller transistors but constant leakage per transistor is that heat becomes more concentrated. You actually get higher temperatures for the same power draw. In order to keep the chip from overheating, you have to ratchet down the power draw.

It's actually going to become harder and harder to make a power guzzling card in the future because of this; the chip will overheat before it is able to draw that much power.

 

[Steevo]

A more detailed explanation is that the cards' power draw are already at their limit, and unless there is a monumental advance in air cooling we won't see cards go over 300W.

20nm should theoretically bring lower power draw, but not for the reason you think. In the past a lower transistor size meant less leakage (wasted power) per transistor, which resulted in less power draw. However, the most modern silicon manufacturing processes are having trouble controlling leakage as transistor size decreases, so today leakage is more or less held constant as transistors shrink. The problem with smaller and smaller transistors but constant leakage per transistor is that heat becomes more concentrated. You actually get higher temperatures for the same power draw. In order to keep the chip from overheating, you have to ratchet down the power draw.

It's actually going to become harder and harder to make a power guzzling card in the future because of this; the chip will overheat before it is able to draw that much power.

Thermal density, same issues Nvidia faced with the 4xx series, the real issue is the advanced SOI process is too expensive to use for a GPU. When we make a GPU core efficient enough and the die size small enough power consumption will drop dramatically.

Imagine either camps core running at 4Ghz instead of 1 with the same thermal load?

 

[Aerpoweron]

Double precision

Thanks for the infos Steevo and The Von Matrices.

But i have another question. I have done some searching and i can't find any sources for the double precision calculation power of the 290x. Some sites say 1/4 of single precision and others say 1/8th.

If someone is running Milkyway@home, it would be nice to see some times from the Work Units. If 1/8 then the times are comparable to the 6970s. If 1/4 then it should be about 30 to 40% faster than on the 7970.

Since i don't have the money at the moment i can't test it myself.

 

[Steevo]

I have seen numbers from F@H and it seems about 20% faster than a 7970 with decent temps, I am not sure if F@H uses DP or SP however.


If it was cut to 1/8 it was due to temps and power draw to keep it from burning up. This GPU is extremely efficient in 2mm for performance, I hope they find some power savings in a future spin and push it further.

 

[reedy777]

70% for Titan and 100% for 290x crossfire, that's not a mere 30% increase of performance. From Titan's viewpoint, that's 100%/70% which gives 42.8% increase, it's 30% decrease only from 290x CF viewpoint.

true that. also at the moment these cards are limited in xfire @ 67% due to heat according to other reviews it world be nice to some water cooled benchies from what I've seen the 290 pars the 780 ti max oc for max oc

 

[reedy777]

true that. also at the moment these cards are limited in xfire @ 67% due to heat according to other reviews it world be nice to some water cooled benchies from what I've seen the 290 pars the 780 ti max oc for max oc

24/7 oc that is and I mention it because I recently upgraded to a 2560 x 1440 and I specifically want to now if you can run crisis 3 at a smooth 60fps it took me 3 680's @ 1150 to do it on 1080p but I think the 2 gb ram might be holding me back

 

[Blín D'ñero]

"2 GB RAM" you have??? Much too little, and the shortage problem gets exponentially bigger whether it's XP x86 or Windows 7 x64.

I have an average of 50 ~ 60 fps in Crysis 3 Very High / 4 x AF @ 2560 x 1600 / 60 on crossfire 7970 and more than enough RAM with 16 GB.

 

[BIGARC]

"2 GB RAM" you have??? Much too little, and the shortage problem gets exponentially bigger whether it's XP x86 or Windows 7 x64.

I have an average of 50 ~ 60 fps in Crysis 3 Very High / 4 x AF @ 2560 x 1600 / 60 on crossfire 7970 and more than enough RAM with 16 GB.

Im pretty sure he ment 2 gb vram mate lol as the 680 come with 2 gb vram .. and your 16 gb system ram wont make a difference , and your using 4 x af not 16 x and what about msaa x 8 ? im not having a go im just saying . I have a xfx r9 290 x with a ek waterblock clocked at 1130 core / 1380 mem it gets very very close to 60 frps average @ 1080 p crisis 3 maxxed with 8 x msaa etc