Must be fun reviewing the same card with different stickers again and again. xD Probably one of those downsides when it comes to reviewing hardware.

I feel bad to say it, but it feels like its just same old 290X review with replaced card name. Neither can we see how this card perform comparing to other vendors 290X. But yeah, just waiting for fully custom 290X. And that would be the time to pull the trigger between 780Ti or 290X.

I wonder which sticker is the fastest!

Is it me or is AMD/3rd party vendors taking way to long to release the 290/290x aftermarket coolers?? I mean the 780 ti already is releasing the aftermarket cards.......

The 780Ti is just a faster 780 so they just adapt those coolers to it I would guess, much like the 280(x) being a faster 7970 and thus being able to use the same cooling solutions so there's already quite a few available. 🙂

Is it me or is AMD/3rd party vendors taking way to long to release the 290/290x aftermarket coolers?? I mean the 780 ti already is releasing the aftermarket cards.......

Its not you, they are taking way to long, 780 Ti came out after the 290s, and their custom cooled cards are already on sale, although that could be due to the fact that the 780 Ti isn't a new chip, and will have been getting run off for decades :P, while the 290s are new, so there won't really be enough of those ran off yet, or, i could be wrong, which wouldn't be a first :P

a battle between custum 290x/780ti before the end of the year would be nice then then I could choose which one (or two 😀 ) to take

Its not you, they are taking way to long, 780 Ti came out after the 290s, and their custom cooled cards are already on sale, although that could be due to the fact that the 780 Ti isn't a new chip, and will have been getting run off for decades :P, while the 290s are new, so there won't really be enough of those ran off yet, or, i could be wrong, which wouldn't be a first :P

True about the 780 already having the cooler designed...but still the specs are prly given out way before the card is released so they can already be working on the designs and them basically finished by the time the ref. card is released....so technically they are taking to long imo....by the time they are release the year will be over...missing out on those Christmas sales etc. Also im sure Nvidia is withing 4-6 months of releasing something even more powerful than the 780 ti so idk lol

Why no 3rd party HSFs yet?

Why no 3rd party HSFs yet?

I put that question to MSI, Asus, and Gigabyte. The respondent from MSI wrote that I should contact my nearest MSI distributor. Asus replied with "Here we have no such informationa bout R929 series have such problem about cooling issue." (duh.) and Gigabyte wrote "Thank you for your kindly mail and inquiry. Currently, R9 290 graphics cards are all reference cards. When information is ready, you can refer to our website for more information." Again... Duh! I posted the question to the AMD forum. AMD disallowed third party cooling for the 290x until Dec 1st, allegedly for the purpose of quality control which is pretty ironic. Maybe we'll see something in the next few days. There's not yet even a WHQL driver out for the 290X.