New GPU

[FerK]

Hi , i wonder how much HOT is where you live for saying that you can't handle the heat and then says is not a problem the heat but the problem is powerdraw.
I can undestand powerdraw that is not low but when you buyed the 290 you didn't see the specs?
Where i live is 28° C and sometimes evene higher and if i have the sun over my window i just close a little the shade outside .
If you're room temps is constant and you don't let the air flow you don't go anywhere if you want low temps.
I have a r9 Fury x and when i watch stuff on pc or youtube or gaming my card don't go over 65°c .
Mine does have a 120Radiator because the fury x is like this but you could have done something similar with an all in one cooler to stick on the 290.
About the new card then go with a 1070 if you find a good deal or 1080 .
I will waith for RX Vega too but if you need a card so soon try to find a good deal with Nvidia gpus.

I live in Madrid. We saw 35ºC today, but a couple of weeks ago we had like 38ºC which is something that's going to happen again soon. I did know about the power draw of the 290 before buying it, in fact I specifically bought my current PSU for it. It's not a big deal although I wouldn't say no to a less power hungry solution. What I didn't know was how it would work while hardware decoding. I don't care about the card temperature, I care about the heat that's not in the card.

I don't know what you mean about the airflow. My case is pretty big and has three intake fans and two taking the hot air out. I removed one of the HDD racks to allow for a better airflow. The wiring inside could be a lot better but that was not the issue, I'm running an HD5850 now with a TDP of 150w and the difference in produced heat is immense. With the 290 I touched where my abovefan is and it burned, it was really hot. I touch now and I don't feel much difference from the room temperature.

The 290 produces a lot of heat, at least it did for me. It helps during winter, but in the summer? I often have 30ºC+ in my house in every room, especially where my pc is because the sun hits directly. A 290 pumping more heat to an already hot room doesn't help.

I was few minutes late to snatch a GTX 980 at €180€ today and there is a GTX 970 (from Zotac, the standard) at €149 with (according to the vendor) 23 months left of warranty. I think I prefer to go after a 1060 after all but, are those good offers? In case I change my mind.

Regards.

 

[Capitan Harlock]

A 980 at 180€ is not bad but about the room temperature, i can say that it gets to 35 and more here too but i don't get problems because my window is open and so the room have air being exchanged .
Today i even tryed Furmark at 4k and i got 67°max .
I don't know my room temps but the having the air don't being change is a factor to count it.

 

[eidairaman1]

It just that it doesn't feel right. Thanks for the help by the way.

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My priority is still a 1060/980/970 if I can find a good price but, what about those AMD models? They're going to be more power hungry, and that's not a good thing but I could ignore it as long as it doesn't work the same way as the 290. I had like 60-70w more comsuption while using hardware decoding in a Twitch stream and the temps were right for the card (60-65ºC, no danger) but the heat that was being dissipated was obviously going elsewhere, outside the case with me suffering with it. I'm using an old HD5850 now that has some basic H264 HW decoding and it doesn't produce nearly any heat, the hell were AMD thinking when they made the 290 like that. Any experience?

VLIW vs GCN. GCN is heavy compute ready.

 

[Th3pwn3r]

Ferk, how efficient is your power supply? Also, if you can get rid of your hard drives for solid state. I remember when I had an oven that used to cook my legs under my desk, ugh lol. It was awful to say the least.

 

[Vayra86]

If this is primarily about room temperature, get a card with as low TDP as possible, and never above 200w. This will reduce the problem. But honestly, ventilation is king and will do a better job than anything else. All GPUs put out significant heat, what you want is moving air. Put a desk fan in there or something and open doors/windows on either side of the room and you'll always stay at ambient room temperature even with 400W worth of TDP blowing out.

Another option is closing it all down and put an airconditioner in there. That'll push down ambient temps and as a consequence, your system will be running cooler too.

 

[HD64G]

I'd just underclock the 290 until the temps become tolerable for the summer. A loss of 10-15% in average FPS shouldn't be so critical for the gameplay imho. You can rise the voltage again when the weather gets less warm with 2 clicks from the driver. No need to change a good gpu for the temps when it is so adjustable.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I'd just underclock the 290 until the temps become tolerable for the summer. A loss of 10-15% in average FPS shouldn't be so critical for the gameplay imho. You can rise the voltage again when the weather gets less warm with 2 clicks from the driver. No need to change a good gpu for the temps when it is so adjustable.

Spain is always fairly hot m8 it's in the mediterranean.

Though I agree that that clocking it down is a good idea as it costs absolutely nothing. The 290 is still a room heater though. 275w TDP compared to the 1060's 120w. The 290 will always run hotter.

The OP has already sold his 290 anyway so its already a little too late. He shouldnt lose any performance with a 1060 though

 

[JrRacinFan]

Price concerns, Wait for Vega or go up to the 1080 Ti ( and thats still iffy ..... ).

 

[FerK]

Ferk, how efficient is your power supply? Also, if you can get rid of your hard drives for solid state. I remember when I had an oven that used to cook my legs under my desk, ugh lol. It was awful to say the least.

My PSU is a XFX Pro 750w Black edition. Its gold rated if I'm not mistaken. About the HDD part, can't really do that. I currently have a 250GB SSD, and two HDD, one with 1TB and the other one 500GB. In fact a few days ago I ordered a new 1TB HDD because I'm running out of space. Switching all that space for SSD would cost a fortune. I guess I could always sell these drives and get a single one that's bigger, but maybe in the future.

If this is primarily about room temperature, get a card with as low TDP as possible, and never above 200w. This will reduce the problem. But honestly, ventilation is king and will do a better job than anything else. All GPUs put out significant heat, what you want is moving air. Put a desk fan in there or something and open doors/windows on either side of the room and you'll always stay at ambient room temperature even with 400W worth of TDP blowing out.

Another option is closing it all down and put an airconditioner in there. That'll push down ambient temps and as a consequence, your system will be running cooler too.

Hi, as far as I know keeping the windows closed in hot days is beneficial if your inside temp is lower. Opening the windows would allow for moving the air but that would be hotter air so...

I have air conditioner, unfortunately two-three years ago the company changed my electricity meter and ever since the bills are 2-3x higher. I use it but not as much as I would like.

I'd just underclock the 290 until the temps become tolerable for the summer. A loss of 10-15% in average FPS shouldn't be so critical for the gameplay imho. You can rise the voltage again when the weather gets less warm with 2 clicks from the driver. No need to change a good gpu for the temps when it is so adjustable.

Tried that with MSI afterburner. Lowered the frequencies to stock 290 instead of the Sapphire overclocked ones. Also lowered a bit the voltage (as much as the card allowed for it since I had several crashes during the process). Didn't see much improvement though. I stopped trying because of so many crashes when I tried to keep undervolting and since I'm not an expert I didn't know if this could damage the card.

Price concerns, Wait for Vega or go up to the 1080 Ti ( and thats still iffy ..... ).

Unfortunately my budget doesn't go as high. There is an alarming lack of stock in Spain due to mining and the lowest priced 1070 is close to €500, so imagine how much it costs a 1080 TI..
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I'm still thinking about that Zotac 970. The performance gain/lose is negligible but it has some h265 capabilities and half the TDP. Unsure about the brand and the seller since he claims he bought the card one month ago in Amazon but that the warranty goes with Zotac and unless it's refurbished I don't understand how and why he bought that card and why he doesn't want it.

 

[JrRacinFan]

Unfortunately my budget doesn't go as high. There is an alarming lack of stock in Spain due to mining and the lowest priced 1070 is close to €500, so imagine how much it costs a 1080 TI..

Then wait for the next gen is my suggestion. Not worth the update.

 

[P4-630]

I wouldn't buy that used 970.....
Save up for at least a new 1060 6GB.

 

[Th3pwn3r]

My PSU is a XFX Pro 750w Black edition. Its gold rated if I'm not mistaken. About the HDD part, can't really do that. I currently have a 250GB SSD, and two HDD, one with 1TB and the other one 500GB. In fact a few days ago I ordered a new 1TB HDD because I'm running out of space. Switching all that space for SSD would cost a fortune. I guess I could always sell these drives and get a single one that's bigger, but maybe in the future.

Grab yourself an external drive and only power/use it when you need to.

 

[Vayra86]

Hi, as far as I know keeping the windows closed in hot days is beneficial if your inside temp is lower. Opening the windows would allow for moving the air but that would be hotter air so...
.

Yes obviously. But when you have a machine in there exhausting warm air, your ambient will soon meet outside temps and when it does, that's when you open the window. At that point, your room and system temp gets a chance to stabilize. It won't get better than that I'm afraid

You could drill a hole in the wall and make a wind tunnel out the back of your PC, problem solved ?

 

[Pendeco]

if you can maybe buy air conditioner. set to 16 degrees celcius haha really this is what i did back then

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

kinda silly to sell a card with the intent to buy a weaker, older card just because of heat which can be reduced by underclocking the current card.


a 1060/70 is a better investment, save your $$$ for that.

 

[Vayra86]

kinda silly to sell a card with the intent to buy a weaker, older card just because of heat which can be reduced by underclocking the current card.


a 1060/70 is a better investment, save your $$$ for that.

Not only that, but getting a replacement in this mining craze is going to be costly too...

 

[FerK]

kinda silly to sell a card with the intent to buy a weaker, older card just because of heat which can be reduced by underclocking the current card.


a 1060/70 is a better investment, save your $$$ for that.

If you look further up I already said I tried underclocking and undervolting the thing, but didn't know or couldn't get a good setting. I don't regret selling the 290, even if I get a random GTX 970 it would still be a small step forward for my needs, and I can get one for +20€ at worse, which isn't really a significant investment.
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Thank you all for your help by the way. I'm most likely going after a 1060 6GB, once I see one that I like.