XFX R9 290 Double Dissipation, (R9-290A-EDFD)

Overclocking

Overclocking our GPU’s at Bjorn3D is as natural as breathing so we took the XFX R9 290 DD to the test bench with a couple of different OCing utilities and drove it like we stole it.

 

At stock the XFX R9 290 DD the core is clocked to 947 MHz and the memory to 1250 MHz and we’ve seen some factory overclocked offering so we are excited to pump the volume up on this card.

We arbitrarily picked TRIXX Sapphires OCing utility to start with but the built in CCC OCing utility would likely work as well.

We upped the Core Clock by 50 MHz at a shot until we hit artifact city then upped the VDDC offset +18 and obtained a great Core OC of 1140 MHz for a sweet and stable (benchable, stressable and playable) OC of 193 MHz. We pushed the memory to 1375 MHz up from 1250 MHz so we got 125 MHz memory speed increase.

We swapped out for MSI Afterburner an OCing utility we are a little more familiar with.

We got a no voltage added OC of 1139 MHz core and 1376 MHz memory so we know the XFX R9 290 is in the butter zone for OCing cards.

We hit the XFX R9 290 DD with + 8% voltage and got a core clock of 1152 MHz but you may be able to trim that voltage a tad but at 6% we had artifacts so we popped it to 8% and it was both playable and benchable. We played with the memory a bit at this voltage but anything over the 125 MHz OC got us artifacts so we called the ball at 1152 MHz Core and 1375 MHz Memory a more than respectable OC for any R9 card.

We did Two runs of 3DMark Firestrike, one with the XFX R9 290 at stock clocks and one with it overclocked. We re-tuned the entire system to close to maximum settings but both runs of 3DMark were done with the same exact system settings. The only change in these scores are the Stock GPU Clocks and the OC’d GPU.

Well tuned system running 4.4GHz ram set to 14 -15 – 15 timings 2400 MHz speed we ran a 10572 3DMark Graphics score, the combined score was 4097.

Overclocked to 1144 Core and 1376 Memory we ran a 12534 graphics score an increase of 1962 points in graphics. The Combined score jumped to 4783 from 4097 an increase of 686 points.  In anyone’s book given the same system settings and the results solely due to GPU OC that’s one heck of a performance gain.

Final Thoughts

The R9 290 series has been around quite a while and frankly it’s still kicking butt. The charts don’t lie and the XFX R9 290 DD put a serious whipping on our GTX 960’s and did it at a competitive price. Sitting at $279.99 and $259.99 with Rebate it’s priced between the GTX-960 and GTX-970. Speaking of the GTX 970 you look at a $320 to $390 price tag depending on model so the XFX R9 290 DD offers quite a value in a card that churns out FPS well ahead of its price point. 

We like the XFX R9 290 DD both for its competitive pricing and outperforming the GTX-960, it places great GPU technology in the reach of people who can’t afford the $320 GTX 970 and don’t want the 128 Bit bandwidth bottleneck the GTX 960 sees on its memory bus. The lifetime warranty and Double Dissipation cooling solution sure don’t hurt our feelings and XFX is among the few that still follow the credo By Gamers For Gamers.

Look at the simple OC on the XFX R9 290 DD and you can hit 1140 MHz easily in most cases and with no added voltage. The memory got 125 MHz performance increase and between the two forms a pretty sweet OC. On top of all that the Double Dissipation cooling solution kept the Decibel level down to around 40 which earns points for any GPU. Noisy GPU’s detract from the gaming experience and tend to sit on the test shelf and not in the test rig. Single Fan reference design R9 290’s might save a few bucks if you wear over ear headphones for gaming but the rest of your household will wonder if you’ve overclocked the fan.

The Bear Facts: The XFX R9 290 DD is one of those rare cases where time brings its value to the forefront and it’s value and performance need to be re-evaluated. We love the performance / price point the XFX R9 290 DD occupies and it’s formed its own sweet spot and earned a spot in our test rig.

Pros	Cons
High Quality OCing Dream XFX Lifetime Warranty Price Double Dissipation Cooling Low Noise Cooler Temps Than Other R9 290’s Solid FPS When Narrower Bus GPU’s Fail Solidly Built	Power Consumption Higher Than Some Cards Cowling Partially Obscures Dual Bios Switch