R9 Cooling question

So I hear that the R9 290x is loud. But is this just only on the amd reference cards or 3rd parties too?

I noticed all of the AMD review cards are fully shrouded so heat is only venting out the back. But basically every card I've seen for sale msi asus etc, they don't shroud the heatsink and the air pretty much just blows out wherever.

I'm wondering if the fans wont need to spin as fast on the non shrouded designs. And if anyone has seen a review where the sound is recorded in decibels so we have an idea on what loud actually means.

None refrance 290x cards will be avalable from dec this year/jan next year

Stock R9 290X actually isn't much louder than HD7970 reference cooler in "uber" mode...


It's loud as hell, but it's nothing new.

My R9 290X, I have the custom PT1 bios on it ( Voltage unlocked, throttling disabled (Voltage + TDP?), Vdroop ON, and Quasi-Unrestricted Power Limit.), running 1.15v with 150% power management at stock 1GHz and in BF4 it only hits 57C and makes pretty much no noise. Customized a Thermalright VRM cooler for an HD5870 to fit my card with a Prolimatech MK26 for the GPU (I bought this for the HD7970 I had before this so reusing it). I have a 2nd fan "there" (white Fractal one) but it's not plugged in because it's missing a blade and vibrates, only the blue Prolimatech fan is working and quiet as hell (17 dBA at 12v). The broken fan is just there for aesthetic purposes until I replace. xD

 

looks awesome dude. i'd glady pay the lower price to figure out my own cooling solution.  i know the 3rd party card with their coolers are gona make the price jump at least 100 bucks so expect to see 650 dollar 290x and 500 dollar 290's

why would it jump 100 dollars when aftermarket cards are usually only 10-50 more then reference?

The thing is, I don't think that'll be the case with aftermarket coolers. This cooler is much larger than any cooler I'd expect to see from the majority of aftermarket cards and it only cost me $65 (not including the VRM cooler because you'd never see one like that on a retail card). It takes up 4 slots with these fans (3 slots with their slim fans).

I don't see them being much more than the stock cards in price because I'd expect they'd go for more so for a smaller impeller style design that'd cost similar to make as the stock cooler with two much smaller fans and making around 30-40dBA of noise and run somewhere in the low 70s in load so they don't need to raise prices.

The card alone doesn't cost $550, it cost $550 including the stock cooler, so you'd have to take the difference in price between the stock cooler and the aftermarket cooler plus maybe a bit more to get the price they'd likely sell it at. The stock cooler in build quality and materials does not feel cheap, it's fairly heavy actually too so I doubt cards with nice coolers will be $650.