AMD R9 290X Review (Ultra HD 4K testing – Part 2)

To overclock the R9 290X we used AMD Catalyst Control Center and had the BIOS set to the UBER mode.

If you have read the whole review from the start then you will already be aware of AMD OverDrive changes to accommodate the new R9 290X hardware. Our testing today has highlighted that the R9 290X is a hot running card – set by default by AMD to hold at 95c, even if this means downclocking the core speed.

The higher we set the ‘maximum fan speed' the better chance we have of holding the core clock speed at a constant 1,000mhz. We didn't reduce the 95c ‘target GPU temperature' as it means that the GPU core is more likely to downclock under any given circumstance.

To overclock we set the Maximum fan speed to 85% and the target GPU temperature at 95c.


We set the power limit settings to 15% and the GPU clock settings to a 10% increase (+100mhz to 1,100mhz). High Performance memory clock settings were also increased by 10.5%.

It is worth reiterating that the maximum fan speed needs to be increased to get any benefit from these overclocked settings – so we found 85% was a good position to ensure adequate cooling. Sadly, the noise levels were close to 44dBa under load which may not be bearable for many people. I would have a hard time living with it myself.

The clock increases deliver substantial benefits to the 3DMark 11 graphics score, increasing from 15,309 points to 16,670 points. This is around 2,600 points more than a GTX Titan at reference clock speeds.

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