XFX Radeon R9 290X Double Dissipation 4GB GDDR5 Review

Overclocking & Overclocked Performance

The overclocking ability of a graphics card is an important buying consideration irrespective of whether the graphics card is low end or enthusiast level. I’m sure everyone will agree that the more extra performance from overclocking – the better. In our overclocking we push each graphics card to its maximum stable core and memory frequencies. Typically we also raise the power limit to the maximum and where possible raise the voltages if this results in higher overclocks being achieved. We always aim for “24/7” stable overclocks that DO NOT result in potential heat on longevity issues so if we do raise the voltage it is still kept within safe parameters. The latest beta version of MSI’s Afterburner software is the overclocking utility of choice: this is because MSI Afterburner Beta versions typically allows you to circumvent overclocking restrictions – particularly those set by AMD.

The XFX R9 290X Double Dissipation is by far the best core overclocker we’ve managed to get. We put this down to the fact XFX offer a fully unlocked voltage, or maybe we got a fairly promising piece of silicon. However, in theory the unlocked voltage allows for higher overclocks and our results suggest this may well be the case. The memory was fairly poor at overclocking, this is due to the use of inferior Elpida memory chips that never overclock as well as Hynix equivalents. Mileage will of course vary between GPUs but the XFX R9 290X (in our testing at least) is a clear winner.

• XFX R9 290X Double Dissipation – 1175MHz core and 1400MHz actual (5600MHz effective, Elpida) memory.
• Powercolor R9 290X PCS+ – 1125MHz core and 1650MHz actual (6600MHz effective, Hynix) memory.
• Gigabyte R9 290X WindForce OC – 1110MHz core and 1500MHz actual (6000MHz effective, Elpida) memory.
• AMD R9 290X Reference – 1100MHz core and 1525MHz actual (6100MHz effective, Elpida memory.