Today's Hard|Forum Post
Today's Hard|Forum Post
Date:
Monday , January 13, 2014
Author:
Brent Justice
Editor:
Kyle Bennett
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ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II OC Overclocking Review

We will take the ASUS R9 290X DC2 OC custom AMD R9 290X based video card and for the first time see how well the 290X can overclock. We will also for the first time compare it to an overclocked GeForce GTX 780 Ti video card head-to-head and see who wins when overclocking is accounted for.

Introduction

Right before Christmas, at the end of 2013 in December, we got our hands on our first custom cooled and configured AMD Radeon R9 290X video card. The ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II OC video card provided us with the best gameplay experience to date.

We needed a video card that would quell the heat issues of the AMD Radeon R9 290X card's anemic reference cooler design. We need a video card that would quell the noise issues of the AMD Radeon R9 290X. We needed a video card that would provide consistent performance at the advertised GPU clock speed. The ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II had been what we have all been waiting for, and it succeeded in all the areas gamers and enthusiasts needed it too.

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In our initial evaluation we found that the customized hardware and custom DirectCU II cooler kept the GPU cool while gaming. The GPU remained a whole 12 degrees cooler than the reference AMD Radeon R9 290X. On top of that, the fan noise produced by the reference cooler was no longer an issue. Even further, we found that the GPU clock speed was completely consistent, and even overclocked since this is the "OC" version of ASUS' R9 290X. At 1050MHz we noticed no drops in frequency while gaming.

The only area we were not able to test, but very eager to, was overclocking. We wanted to spend quality time with our ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II OC video card to find the best overclock. We did not want to rush out numbers and performance that may not be accurate. One of the AMD R9 290X card's main problems is how it heats up over time and can diminish clock speed under long gaming sessions. This heat and power usage can greatly affect the maximum overclock achieved.

We wanted to spend a lot of time gaming with this video card, simply gaming for long periods of time. We have done this, and we have a very confident, and perhaps slightly underwhelming overclock to show, given the hardware. We don't attribute this to ASUS' robust customizations, but more-so the nature of the R9 290X GPU. We've learned a lot about the thermal properties and throttling, and stability, and signs that air cooling are not giving us the best potential out of the R9 290X GPU.

On the next page we will dive right into overclocking the ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II OC video card. Following that we will explain our overclock on the GeForce GTX 780 Ti. Then we will compare the ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II OC with a reference AMD Radeon R9 290X, and the ASUS card overclocked. Then we will compare the ASUS card overclocked to the GTX 780 Ti overclocked. Then we will go over all the power and thermals, and finally the conclusion the end.

Test Setup

There is a newer 332.21 NVIDIA driver out specific to SLI in some titles, but it adds nothing new over 331.93 that affects our testing here today.

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