Hardware Discussion Thread

**Garteal** · 11-06-2013, 10:21 AM **#171**

Very impressive indeed. Still need to wait for the manufacturers to make a proper cooler for it since the reference cooler is extremely loud as I've read. It's out of my budget so I'm staying with my 280x.

How much is the price difference between the two cards?

***MayImilae*** · (This post was last modified: 11-06-2013, 10:30 AM by MayImilae.)

The R9 290s and R9 290Xs are apparently having some problems with retail units. Basically, their coolers suck, and it's forcing a bunch of retail cards to be stick well below their normal clock rates. This was a problem that was curiously not present in the review samples.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/11/amd-stomps-nvidia-with-r9-290-at-least-in-reviews/
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-review-benchmark,3659-2.html

As toms hardware put it:

[Image: radeon-r9-290-review-benchmarks,Q-Q-407906-22.jpg]

[Image: radeon-r9-290-review-benchmarks,Q-Q-407906-22.jpg]

**NaturalViolence** · 11-06-2013, 10:28 AM **#173**

Yeah I'm waiting for the non-reference coolers to come out. It seems to be due to thermal throttling.

**AnyOldName3** · (This post was last modified: 11-07-2013, 09:00 AM by AnyOldName3.)

Either in Hexus' article or it's comments, other entities were linked to which got better performance out of store-bought cards than their sample, so it looks like T's HW may have just grabbed a dud.

Also, is anyone with knowledge of relative quality of different GPU brands and their coolers going to give some help on which one to get? It seemed like I was about to get some assistance, and then the subject changed. I don't want to spend extra cash on a more expensive card, only to find a cheaper one would have OC'd higher, or get a cheap one with a crappy cooler that's always throttled.

**Garteal** · 11-13-2013, 11:26 PM **#175**

Didn't see your post AON since it didn't bump the thread.

Both the EVGA SC ACX and MSI TF2 coolers are good. The MSI cooler does have some coil whining though from what I've heard.
You can't go wrong with either (if you don't mind the MSI coil whine that is).

I'd prefer the EVGA over the MSI since their policy etc is amazing.

Some more information about Mantle.

Spoiler: (Show Spoiler)

For those interested in Mantle support in Frostbite 3, Johan Andersson (Technical Director) will have a keynote today which will be livestreamed on PCPer at 1:15pm PST / 4:15pm EST.

**Xtreme2damax** · 11-14-2013, 01:29 AM **#176**

Does Haswell run cooler or warmer than my first gen i7 950? What heatsink/fan would be best for Haswell; I am hoping for idle temps of under or around 30 Celsius and nothing above 50 - 60 Celsius under load.

**Anti-Ultimate** · 11-14-2013, 01:35 AM **#177**

Haswell has a lower TDP than the Bloomfield cpu's, so in theory it should run cooler, but I've heard that they run much hotter because the IHS isn't soldered onto the cpu.

IIRC something compareable to the NH-D14 should be enough.

garrlker · 11-14-2013, 05:51 AM **#178**

Apparently today the performance gains of Mantle will be announced. They've been quoted saying they wouldn't release an API with only 5% gains so I'm excited.

garrlker · 11-15-2013, 12:41 AM **#179**

http://www.hardcoreware.net/amd-mantle-apu13/
Apparently atleast 20% performance gains, can be used on any hardware(With extensions),and drops cpu usage significantly(the example i saw was from 40% to 8%).

**Xtreme2damax** · 11-15-2013, 11:45 AM **#180**

Got $400 so far towards Haswell. Going to save a bit more because I want a decent motherboard and an i7 4770-K. Then I can fit it with an extra 2GB stick of ram totaling 8GB and get a GTX 760. Just disassembled my entire HAF X case today to clean it out of dust, I also had to fix the top panel and clean that out as well. Next I have to clean the fans, wipe the dust off the hard drives and some small pieces. Should look like a new system once I get my new hardware and put it all back together.