ASUS Radeon R9-290 DirectCU II OC review

Posted by: Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 01/17/2014 08:41 AM [ 22 comment(s) ]

We review the ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC edition. Ever since AMD released their Hawaii based GPUs they have been popular. The reference cards might run hot, but the custom cooled editions from the board partners are becoming very popular. The card tested today comes from ASUS and is armed with the latest revision of the DirectCU II cooler and will get that Hawaii chip chilled down. The DirectCU II card will be equipped with a fully custom PCB design featuring the Digi+ VRM with Super Alloy Power technology and high quality C-Caps and MOSFETs. The card is powered through 8-Pin + 6-Pin power configuration and obviously runs at factory overclocked specifications. The card clocks in at 1000 MHz and is clocked to 5040 MHz (effective) on the GDDR5 memory.

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Rich_Guy
Senior Member

Posts: 12762

Posted on: 01/17/2014 02:23 PM

Might have to look into these cards, AMDs ****ty drivers always put me off though and I dunno if I could live without Shadowplay.

These Asus ones aren't recommended by OcUK, so they must be pretty bad.

Koniakki
Senior Member

Posts: 2843

Posted on: 01/17/2014 03:42 PM

AMD fixed their drivers awhile ago, like over a year ago now.

Actually neither company fixed their drivers in the past 10+ years..

I have been reading driver complains in almost every single GPU released in that time frame..

vazup
Senior Member

Posts: 326

Posted on: 01/17/2014 04:14 PM

Might have to look into these cards, AMDs ****ty drivers always put me off though and I dunno if I could live without Shadowplay.

Shadowplay sux right now it is locked to only 1080p right now. Tried to stream on Twitch and sinc I have a 21:9 it didnt bother to show a correct image aspect ratio it just displayed a squished 16:9 image. Well granted it is nice for one thing, you dont have to set up anything you just press a button and it starts recording\*********.

Anarion
Senior Member

Posts: 13605

Posted on: 01/17/2014 05:00 PM

Tomshardware had a review of a bunch of 290Xs in an enclosure, and apparently the Asus one uses a cooler intended for a Geforce card, cheaply reusing it, that has some serious issues with temperature in a case as compared to the open-air testbeds reviewers mainly use. I wonder if this is the case with the 290 here as well;

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/r9-290x-case-performance,3710.html
Yeah. Sadly open air temperature and noise tests are completely useless. For that reason I ignore every open air test when it comes to noise and heat.

Rich_Guy
Senior Member

Posts: 12762

Posted on: 01/17/2014 05:26 PM

The Sapphire Tri-X and MSI Gaming are highly rated, only Tri-X being the best cooler so far.

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