Upgrading Video card: Gigabyte R9-290 Winforce

[Bikerdude]

• Don't use furmark, not only does it really stress your card, the drivers auto throttle the app.
  
• Use Heaven benchmark instead.
  
• And 90C on Furmark is about normal for the 290s they run hot.
  
• And almost 30C room temp is hot lol, I keep my room at like 20-22.
  

• I use furemark as a worst case senario, but the issue is Im hitting the same F-mark load temp as other users that have the stock (leaf-blower) cooler. The Windforce cooler is supposed to be more efficient.
  
• I did and 3Dmark and I am seeing 87c
  
• Yeah for a stock cooler.
  
• Yeah its summer here and like most people I dont have aircon, because it never stays hot for long enough.
  

Well popped the cooler off and as useal the manufacturer put too much thermal paste on, so as I had some 'Shin-Etsu' going spare I applied that to the GPU. I also replaced the 4x tension springs on the four main GPU cooler bolts with stiffer springs (they look identical to the Gbyte one that were on there. The idle temp is now sitting at 44c and as the S.E. paste bed's in, hopefully that figure will drop. I have emailed Gbyte support as this card by all rights should not be running this hot, all of the reviews for this specific model are running lower idle and load temps.

 

In the mean time I think its about time I upgraded the mish-mash of 120mm fans I have in my Fractal case for some high CFMs and low noise units.

[Bikerdude]

So after a few days to allow the HS paste to bed-in I have checked the temps again.

• idle - 43c
  
• load - 84c (furmark)
  
• room - 29c
  

So just changing the paste has reduced the furmark LT by 3c and idle temp by 3c, but I decided to take it further using software tweaks, using MSI afterburner I setup a custom voltage/fan/clock user profile that auto loads at startup -

• non boost voltage reduced by 50mV,
  
• fan profile that starts at 40% rather than 20%
  
• reduced the boost clock from 1040 to 1000mhz
  

I then got the following results -

• idle - 39c
  
• load - 81c (furmark)
  
• room - 29c
  

I also noticed that @1Ghz the core never fluctuated like it was doing at the stock @1040, a core clock of 1Ghz is more than acceptable for a non-reference 290. But it looks like if I want lower temps or the same temp at default voltage/clock I am going to have to get the gpu-face of the stock cooler skimmed so its perfectly flat. Or buy a 3rd party cooler that has more cooling power and get that skimmed, both of which are annoying as the point of getting a non-reference card w/custom cooler is to have lower temps along with lower noise.

 

On the 3rd party cooler front, the only one thus far that has the required cooling grunt and isnt ginormous is the AC accelero xtreme III/IV. But as the cheeky f***ers (AC) want £50(rrp) for it, I will be have a good look around for an alternative.

[Lux]

gpu-face of the stock cooler skimmed so its perfectly flat.

 

This is really what the thermal paste is for as I'm sure you're aware. Quite easily you can take that cooler off and take a piece of glass (e.g. old glass table/window/etc.) and place a piece of 400/800/1200 (in that order) grit sand paper (preferrably wet/dry sand paper) on it with some water and lap that HSF to a mirror flat polish.

 

I've done this before. The down side is that after an hour or so of work, its only going to, at most, change things by 1-3 degress.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Lux

[Bikerdude]

• This is really what the thermal paste is for as I'm sure you're aware. Quite easily you can take that cooler off and take a piece of glass (e.g. old glass table/window/etc.) and place a piece of 400/800/1200 (in that order).
  
• I've done this before. The down side is that after an hour or so of work, its only going to, at most, change things by 1-3 degress.
  

• After having a look I can't skim, so will take it a local engineering place and get it spark eroded.
  
• Yeah same here (spark eroded) on the Inno3d hawk cooler on my old GTX480, for £20 got a 3c drop @idle & load.
  

@Anyone, got any recommendations for a 3rd part vga cooler?

[Lux]

Interesting. Spark eroded will create tons of microscopic pits/lans in the surface of the material and applying the TIM would seem tricky because tiny air bubbles could get trapped when placing the HSF. Did you butter the surface of the HSF with a razor prior to attaching it? ..like a flat scrape across the surface to fill any voids? I would think that would alleviate that issue. Still, the temp drop you mention is in line so its interesting it had no effect.

 

Lapping the HSF shouldn't be an issue though you might have to remove some of the spring pins but I've never seen a cooler that would prohibit it with the pins removed. Not trying to be argumentative.

 

20 quid isn't bad though. That's one of the reason I water cool my cpu. Even when its scorching in here my over clock is still within acceptable bounds.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Lux

[Bikerdude]

Well the surface was slightly un-level by 0.14mm, now its perfectly flat and smooth. But after all that work, pretty much no change in temps (idle is a 1c lower and load under Furmark still 81c). I am still getting better results with the custom fan/voltage profile via msi afterburner.

[Lux]

And the 1c lower temp could just be down to a tad better remount this time around. Hard to tell. .14mm (about 6 thousandths) should easily be within the allowable bounds that the spring clips afford, and apparently it was pretty flat, otherwise you might have gotten another degree or two.

 

I don't know the ambient in your room but 80C is about the norm for a maxed out GPU isn't it?

[Bikerdude]

I don't know the ambient in your room but 80C is about the norm for a maxed out GPU isn't it?

The room abient was 27c and 80c under furmark its not a bad load temp by any stretch, during gaming I have never seen it get above 60-70c. But what must be noted is that in order to get these better temps 25% of that is the skimming and better thermal paste and 75% os the fact I an under volting by 0.044v at idle, dropped the max clock under load from 1050 to 1000 and created a more argessive fan profile. Ideally what I would like to do is save these settings into the bios rather than having to run a tray utility to do it, but can't find a bios editor for this card.

[Lux]

Interesting thread. You may have read it already.

 

"We have already correct "Base Clock/Memory Clock : 1040/5000MHz" about VBIOS F3L on our website. Please first confirm whether the original VBIOS is F1/F2, if it is, please feel free to update F3L VBIOS. But, if the original VBIOS is Not F1/F2, please do not update VBIOS F3L (due to they are not the same series as we mentioned before).

 

Regards,

GIGABYTE"

 

And it appears flashing the latest errors out....

 

That was earlier in the year though.

 

It looks just from a read through 2 different threads there are numerous issues with this card. Have long have you had it and why not consider replacing it with a sapphire?

Edited August 12, 2014 by Lux

[Bikerdude]

I havent seen that thread, my card shipped with the F3L bios - gonna see if the F5 bios is compatible with my card.

 

And I am already under volting it by 44mV (50mV cause some wierd screen garbage when waking up from standby) and unclocking from 1040 to 1000, as mentioned above.

[Bikerdude]

I havent seen that thread, my card shipped with the F3L bios - gonna see if the F5 bios is compatible with my card.

Updated to the correct version of the F5 bios, will do some testing tomoz.

[Bikerdude]

Well after all the above faffing about the card developed a fault, so took it back and changed it for a GTX970 which turned up today. For the Ati perf issue's I've detailed in other threads I will have to fall back on you guys that own a HD5000 series card or higher.

[Oldjim]

The interesting question in relation to darkmod is where the limitations are.

I have no idea how to check but I suppose it depends on how much is graphics dependent and how much is cpu

As an example of the difference my rig which is now rather old but with an upgraded graphics card runs Crysis, Dishonored, etc,with no problems but really struggles with Thief (the new one) because I still have a rubbish Intel Core 2 Duo.

As discussed previously in another thread I did think about going up to a Core 2 Quad - motherboard limit - but decided not to on the basis that I very much doubt I will play Thief again and the next game I buy may need a major upgrade of the CPU which will mean a new motherboard, ram, etc.and at that time I may also go for an SSD primary drive

[Bikerdude]

Saving your pennies for a new rig is far more prudent, and you reuse some of the parts from the current rig.

[Lux]

Well after all the above faffing about the card developed a fault, so took it back and changed it for a GTX970 which turned up today. For the Ati perf issue's I've detailed in other threads I will have to fall back on you guys that own a HD5000 series card or higher.

 

Ahh, bummer dude. You were hot on that card so that sucks. How is the 970 treating you? I've been looking at those but think I'll wait another gen.

[Lux]

....and at that time I may also go for an SSD primary drive

 

Change this from a "may" to a "will". SSD along with larger monitor/s are 2 of the upgrades that make the largest difference from a user perspective and SSD doesn't carry along with it the burden of more graphic power that the monitor size does. You'll never go back. Also, my personal SSD recommendation would be Samsung or Crucial, respectively. I've used both of these and never had a moments trouble with them.

[Bikerdude]

• Ahh, bummer dude. You were hot on that card so that sucks.
  
• How is the 970 treating you? I've been looking at those but think I'll wait another gen.
  

• Only from the point of view that AMD had finally caught up with nvidia, when AMD comback with a driver fix I will buy/borrow a R9-270 or 290 etc.
  
• Well it idle's 8-10c cooler, under furmark it never got above 71c and the TDP is half that of the 290 (148w versus 300w). The 970 & 290 trade places on some games but overall the 970 is the faster card and it has physx.
  

The only negetive I could find was the windforce version of the 970 I have is physically longer(2cm) than the 290 or my old 480, and this would be a problem for some users.