R9 280X Owners

[MrRockliffe]

The 290 is tempting, especially the unlocked VTX cards that OcUK are selling, but i'm not sure if i can put up with the heat, throttling and especially the noise! I returned my Asus card today so now i'm stuck using the crappy Intel HD4000 GPU until i get something else... I sold the GTX 660 Ti and my old 7950 is in another machine .

Is the other machine in use? If definitely wait for non reference coolers. Itll be well worth the wait!

[Dog]

I'm about to build a new pc, a micro atx build, how do you think one of these cards would do in such a small case. The case i'll be using is a coolermaster elite 120

[PowerPie5000]

I'm about to build a new pc, a micro atx build, how do you think one of these cards would do in such a small case. The case i'll be using is a coolermaster elite 120

I personally wouldn't want to use a 290/290X in a mini ITX case (the updated Elite 130 is also available btw).

[CoolHotCold]

I personally wouldn't want to use a 290/290X in a mini ITX case (the updated Elite 130 is also available btw).

Well that's what I'm running. But I'm not sure you can really classify a BitFenix Prodidy as a ITX case. I'll post pictures once I RMA my R9 290 and get the watercooling setup on it.

[Dog]

Well that's what I'm running. But I'm not sure you can really classify a BitFenix Prodidy as a ITX case. I'll post pictures once I RMA my R9 290 and get the watercooling setup on it.

Thanks, it would be interesting to see. I haven't tried watercooling or any other type of cooling.

[PowerPie5000]

I was just about to pull the trigger on buying a Gigabyte R9 280X from Scan, but then i noticed it doesn't say anything about BF4 being included... Competitors are selling it with BF4 (albeit at a slightly higher price).

[MrRockliffe]

I would ask scan to see if they are. If not, BF4 is worth the little extra.

[PowerPie5000]

I would ask scan to see if they are. If not, BF4 is worth the little extra.

I've sent them an email and have also mentioned it in a thread that someone else started... There doesn't seem to be many options with the R9 280X and i'm staying away from the MSI version to be safe. I may consider another Asus card as mine was probably a dodgy one off.

I wonder if they're actually shipping with the proper 280X Tahiti XTL core now? I know the early 280X cards used the Tahiti XT2 core (7970 GHz edition).

[PowerPie5000]

Gibbo over at OcUK kindly lowered the price on their Gigabyte R9 280X Windforce (comes with BF4)... I just went ahead and bought it .

[MrRockliffe]

Gibbo over at OcUK kindly lowered the price on their Gigabyte R9 280X Windforce (comes with BF4)... I just went ahead and bought it .

Awesome! Let us know what it's like, including pictures etc

[PowerPie5000]

Awesome! Let us know what it's like, including pictures etc

Hopefully it's a keeper... Well, at least until Nvidia Maxwell or the AMD R9 390 cards

[PowerPie5000]

Received my Gigabyte R9 280X Windforce OC card today and "f*ck me this thing is LOUD" was the first thing that came to mind when i started using it. I've not heard any graphics card to be this loud since owning a pair of Geforce 7900GT cards in SLI years ago (which were notorious for having loud fans).

Anyway, things are looking pretty good on the temperature side of things with it running around 65C when gaming and hitting 72C with Furmark... MUCH better than the Asus 280X DCII TOP which hit 83C gaming & 86C within minutes of running Furmark. There are a couple of other minor niggles though... Firstly, there doesn't seem to be any way of monitoring the VRM temps. Secondly, Gigabyte must have a crap/sloppy manufacturing process as there's quite a few residue patches left on the PCB (guessing it's solder flux).

I'm going to have a fiddle with the fan settings as i've got some overhead when it comes to temps, so maybe i can lower the fan speeds a bit . The noise almost made me want to return it, but i'm losing out too much on postage (lost about £30 postage so far with 3 returns in the last couple of months and i'm fed up with chasing OcUK for postage refunds ).

Anyway, i guess i'll use the included free BF4 code now and stay up for hours .

[MrRockliffe]

Received my Gigabyte R9 280X Windforce OC card today and "f*ck me this thing is LOUD" was the first thing that came to mind when i started using it. I've not heard any graphics card to be this loud since owning a pair of Geforce 7900GT cards in SLI years ago (which were notorious for having loud fans).

Anyway, things are looking pretty good on the temperature side of things with it running around 65C when gaming and hitting 72C with Furmark... MUCH better than the Asus 280X DCII TOP which hit 83C gaming & 86C within minutes of running Furmark. There are a couple of other minor niggles though... Firstly, there doesn't seem to be any way of monitoring the VRM temps. Secondly, Gigabyte must have a crap/sloppy manufacturing process as there's quite a few residue patches left on the PCB (guessing it's solder flux).

I'm going to have a fiddle with the fan settings as i've got some overhead when it comes to temps, so maybe i can lower the fan speeds a bit . The noise almost made me want to return it, but i'm losing out too much on postage (lost about £30 postage so far with 3 returns in the last couple of months and i'm fed up with chasing OcUK for postage refunds ).

Anyway, i guess i'll use the included free BF4 code now and stay up for hours .

Lucky! I might see if I can trade AC black flag and Splinter Cell for it.

Weird about the noise though, I thought that the Gigabyte cooler was considered the best?

[PowerPie5000]

Lucky! I might see if I can trade AC black flag and Splinter Cell for it.

Weird about the noise though, I thought that the Gigabyte cooler was considered the best?

The cooler is good at keeping the temps low, but the fans can get quite loud under load. Anyway, i lowered the fan speed but now i'm faced with some extremely irritating coil whine!! I'm starting to think the build quality on AMD cards lately is just crap! I might end up returning yet another card and probably at my own expense too . It's an absolute joke to be getting coil whine in this day and age and especially since all these hardware manufacturers boast about using solid chokes and caps etc...

Now, do i put up with loud fans or equally annoying coil whine... Or return my third R9 280X? Quiet late night gaming sessions are ruined and i don't always feel like wearing a headset.

[MrRockliffe]

Return it. If it's faulty it should go back. And try to keep on at OCuk, is disgusting that they have reimbursed you get! I wouldn't try sapphire, their coolers are really loud under load. Asus appears to be the quietest.

[PowerPie5000]

Return it. If it's faulty it should go back. And try to keep on at OCuk, is disgusting that they have reimbursed you get! I wouldn't try sapphire, their coolers are really loud under load. Asus appears to be the quietest.

It costs me just over £12 to send back a graphics card using Parcelforce... I've already returned 2 of them along with a HDD that was DOA (that's around £30 in postage so far). The card runs fine but the coil whine is irritating! I've also claimed the BF4 code from AMD so i'm not too sure what OcUK do about that? My first R9 280X was a Sapphire card and i didn't even get to test it out as it arrived with a damaged cooler (and the box had been previously opened). Asus are pretty quiet until the fans reach around 60%, then it gets pretty audible (at least with the R9 280X DCII TOP i had, which ran too hot for my liking).

Do retailers get funny if people return a few components in a row? It's becoming a joke really.