i'm oc'ing my msi r9 290 gaming edition. stock is 1007mhz core and 1250 for the ram. i can get the ram to 1400mhz (hynix). i haven't tried further yet but i ran into some problems with oc the core. i use msi afterburner and i just slide the power and voltage to the max and start adding mhz to the core. i'm currently @ 1170mhz in valley. after 1170 some weird lines showed up so i stoped. 1170mhz is pretty high for an air cooled r9 290 so i'm not really sure if it's stable or not. i can run valley fine but when I load the benchmark and start it my gpu goes to 100% usage and i can hear some clicking noise when it goes to 100% usage. closing the benchmark my gpu goes to ~0% usage and i hear the clicking noise again. is this safe?
also when using msi kombuster it's stable on 1170 for some time and with 100% fanspeed it goes to 90C on the gpu. and the vrm1 goes slowly to 112C. when hitting 112C on the vrm1 some weird blocks are on my screen. is it the gpu that's unstable or is the vrm1 getting to hot so it's unstable. also with kombuster i hear the clicking noise all the time.
I think you should back down the overclock a little bit. The high core clock speed is making your Vram unstable, and the heat is definitely bad for the card. I don't know what the clicking might be, maybe your card crying in pain? lol. When you start seeing bad things happen at high temps, generally you should avoid those situations.
thanx! do you know normal temperatures for the r9 290? i normally leave the core at 850mhz cuz the r9 290 is a beast. the oc is probably only if a buy a higher res screen in the future or i can wait a bit longer for a new gpu. waiting on 8k 144hz+ 1ms non tn panels :P
i just ran valley agian on everything max 1080p and msaa 8x. 977mhz 50.0 fps. min 26.1 and max 101.5 score 2091
@ 1170mhz 64.1fps. min 29.0, max 117.3. score was 2680
pistol got 2466 points with a r9 290x....
there is some clicking noise with normal clocks to in valley but never hear it in other stuff. do you know a way to improve the termals? my case looks like this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/66jedar21gcj466/2014-05-13%2018.57.03.jpg i have no side panel atm but normally i have one. the testing was without side panel so i need something to keep the temperature down. i have the windowd version of the fractal r4 so i can't mount a fan in the side. i have 1 140mm fan and 2 92mm fans that i can use. i can mount the 140mm fan in the bottom but i don't really know if it will improve something.
the R4 isn't a good case for dealing with heat, so I wouldn't recommend any high overclocks. There really isn't anything you can do to improve thermals, its designed to be quiet, not for optimal airflow.
the airflow is pretty good in my opinion. i can feel air when i have my hand in the case :P. i ran valley again with cpu oc (4.5ghz i7 4770k) and fingers crossed for my PSU XD. 2724 points now. the vrm was at 76C and the core was at 60C which was weird. don't know if valley is a good one for heat but i hope i get this in games. it got 3 year warranty and my last card from msi died quickly but i got a new one. i oc that one pretty far so i'm not scared of braking my r9 290. i think i don't need a new gpu until i jump on 4-5-6-8k 144hz.
in metro last light @ 1170mhz the vrm1 was only 62C and the core was 72C with 46% fanspeed. is that good? i think it's great cuz i didn't saw the weird blocks. the vrm is 50C cooler in metro than in msi kombuster. that's a really really big difference. how can that be that much?????
I have the same problem. It makes a clicking noise when its at idle. its not a heat issue either. mine never gets above 85. I have no clue what the problem is but its VERY annoying.