I purchased a R9 380

They make noise, too.

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xen
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I purchased a R9 380

Post by xen » Wed Jan 13, 2016 8:13 pm

It's been a little bit weird, due to an affliction I have I cannot always consistently keep up doing what I like, in the sense of sticking to a thing and bringing it to completion. As a result of this I made a choice that I later regretted in ordering a PSU + GPU, after which I changed the order, after which the shop made an error, they sent me the wrong items, and then wouldn't reinstate any sense of cost I had made not only in the delivery (which was actually zero) but also sending back the item (which was not zero). At that point I decided to change vendor (shop) and purchased a higher level graphics card from a different shop. For some reason I was not happy with it even as I had ordered the GTX 950, so I was immediately planning to replace it with a GTX 960.

The 960 arrived and I was happy (quite happy) but nVidia is doing a bit of false advertizing. What this meant is that they are advertizing with a Heroes of the Storm bundle for 950 and 960 cards, but only with selected retailers. That is such much nonsense that you don't go and scan their participating retailer list, that is just nonsensical, that is not a way to shop for a card. So you buy the card with the belief that you will get the bundle. If some retailer doesn't show it; well, that is probably just appearance, right? For how can such an action be dependent on the RETAILER? That makes no sense.

But then you go back to the nVidia website and you assume you will be able to send in some purchase receipt or bill but it is not so.

So given that I just bailed, returned the unit, and ordered an AMD/ATI equivalent which is the Radeon R9 380.

So I got the very extremely unpopular model from MSI called the MSI Radeon R9 380 2GD5T OC, the 2x Armor model, the white model.

Image

It looks identical to the GTX 960 model, except that:

- it has 2x DVI instead of 3x DisplayPort.

Tell me: what gamer that doesn't spend more than 200 € on a graphics card is going to have 3 DisplayPort monitors? It makes no sense.

MSI is bringing on the market a new GTX 960 white model that also has 2x DVI, so they have learned a lesson apparently.

My graphics card already has 4 outputs which of course is all I could ever need.

But this Radeon has 2x DVI so that is actually exactly what I wanted or needed. I like DVI. I do not need extreme resolutions on my screen.

And 4K gaming is just one of those other nonsense things.

People don't know when enough is enough.

I still play freakin' StarCraft 1.

Anyway:

- this card has the option to select via MSI AfterBurner the complete fan profile you want. You can set a minimum fan speed of zero.
- when gaming in WoW at reasonable settings the temperature rises to maybe 44 degrees, and sometimes my fan spins up to 10% which is about 550 RPM. The fans, they are two of course.

I haven't stress tested anything yet, I don't have any high end games as of current. I have WoW vsync locked to 60 FPS. I am happy to say that at least there is no minimum fan speed on this thing, other than that it runs at 1000 rpm by default until you change it.

If I stress it it currently reaches about 80 degrees C. with my current fan profile which gets the fan spinning about 1600 RPM or some 33%. I would have to let it run for longer to be sure.

That was the valley benchmark and the temp maxes out at 86 degrees with fans at close to 2000 rpm. Or 50%. I may need to make that a little more aggressive ;-). Still it makes for a nice radiator.

Heatpipes are very hot to the touch. The character of the noise of the fans is a slight bit unpleasant but overall not much noticeable. Meaning, if there is sound playing, and the case is closed, and some meter away, you don't really notice the fans until after a while. If I turn the sound off, the thing seems to be crying for help.

With a slightly more aggressive fan profile the temps drop a little bit but not much. Underclocking the thing reduces the temp to 79 degrees at 1900 RPM. Having an open case doesn't make a lot of difference. Case closed the temp stabilizes at 78 degrees with about 890 core clock and 1900 RPM. The fan profile a little more relaxed and 78 degrees at 1850 rpm.

Not the greatest sounding fan I've ever heard, The sound goes up and down a lot and it particularly grows a lot quieter (particularly in the sense of a low resonance) beneath 1820 rpm. At 1750 rpm it still stabilizes at 78 degrees but with less noise. There is a low hum in the sound that is not very pleasant. Might be case resonance, I don't know.

Corsair 650i fan doesn't spin through all of this as the system is probably drawing about 160W from the GPU and 30W from the CPU, but I'm not really sure as GPU-Z lists VCCD power at 90W. At 1500 rpm the fans are already much quieter. It is hard to keep the temps up because it requires 100% full load constantly. I had minimized the Valley window and they had already dropped to 70 degrees and slow to climb. I give up. It takes long for it to reach max temp. I am satisfied now, mostly.

Under normal circumstances my fans won't be beyond 1500 rpm probably. I'm quite content. The thing doesn't reach more than 74 degrees at 1700 RPM currently. And when I turn the sound back on the noise is something that appears to be coming from outside the house. It sounds a bit like a vacuum cleaner your neighbours are using.

Overall I'm not malcontent with this card. I can underclock it and changes its fan parameters the way I want. That is the biggest plus and the biggest requirement. I'm not sure if my RM650i will ever start spinning. If VDDC power is the real power of the card, it doesn't reach the stated 180W by a large distance. And at idle or just playing WoW......

At 1000 RPM I stop hearing the hum (56 degrees). And while playing WoW it goes down to 52 degrees. So.

Pretty good thing I'd say :p.

xan_user
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Re: I purchased a R9 380

Post by xan_user » Wed Jan 13, 2016 8:41 pm

Ill admit, I stopped reading at "Heatpipes are very hot to the touch."

- they should be very hot, that is their job. they are moving a lot of heat away from a very hot source. if they were not "very hot to the touch", then its time to show concern.

xen
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Re: I purchased a R9 380

Post by xen » Thu Jan 14, 2016 1:19 am

I was wondering if someone was going to post a negative response. I guess I was right.

quest_for_silence
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Re: I purchased a R9 380

Post by quest_for_silence » Thu Jan 14, 2016 4:50 am

xen wrote:I guess I was right.

Or, more probably that not, he was just slightly ot (as any side-note would be): be patient, please.

With reference to the review, I didn't understand whether the 380 was a significantly better experience than the 960, gaming-wise, or not.

xan_user
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Re: I purchased a R9 380

Post by xan_user » Thu Jan 14, 2016 7:54 am

not being negative. just cant figure out where the idea that heatpipes, moving 100+ watts of heat, should not be "hot to the touch" comes from. just trying to nip this misconception in the bud, before it gains more steam.

xen
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Re: I purchased a R9 380

Post by xen » Thu Jan 14, 2016 8:18 am

You have nothing better to do right? Going across the internet, nipping misconceptions in the bud, saving the world.

Mod: Please post when you have something to contribute, but not when you don't.

xan_user
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Re: I purchased a R9 380

Post by xan_user » Thu Jan 14, 2016 8:33 am

xen wrote:You have nothing better to do right? Going across the internet, nipping misconceptions in the bud, saving the world.
im not sure why you are offended. that was never my intent.
just trying to help people build silent pc's. for some, understanding how heatpipes and heatsinks operate, helps them along the path to silence.

sorry bud.

Cistron
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Re: I purchased a R9 380

Post by Cistron » Thu Jan 14, 2016 4:37 pm

xan_user wrote:not being negative. just cant figure out where the idea that heatpipes, moving 100+ watts of heat, should not be "hot to the touch" comes from. just trying to nip this misconception in the bud, before it gains more steam.
*cough* :mrgreen:

So, if you only play SC1 and WOW, why not stick with a GTX950?

xen
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Re: I purchased a R9 380

Post by xen » Thu Jan 14, 2016 11:00 pm

xan_user wrote:im not sure why you are offended. that was never my intent.
just trying to help people build silent pc's. for some, understanding how heatpipes and heatsinks operate, helps them along the path to silence.

sorry bud.
I never mentioned that I thought the heatpipe should be cold. It was just an observation I made. If you have ever had e.g. a 95W CPU you will know that if you install e.g. a Ninja 2 heatsink, it is rather impossible to get the thing hotter than perhaps 65 degrees (the chip) and the heatpipes will never feel "very hot to the touch" because the heatsink is just so large that it can contain the heat being generated.

So my statement was a statement of observation or learning, not of incredulity or disgust. Perhaps the latter is slightly true because I feel in general that the heatsink design of these GPUs is nonsensical. That is also form factor, but even within the form factor (because there is room at the top, mostly) I consider the designs to be abysmal and nonsensical. There is very few GPU-card makers that venture outside of the "just place a thin heatsink on the top of the card with fans mounted to it". Given a different design, the thing might not have been "very hot to the touch" but perhaps just "rather hot to the touch". These qualifiers also indicate information. I was learning something, because I have never had a PCIe connector (100W+) GPU card before.

So I was just mentioning stuff that me as a new user finds interesting. I was not implying that it should be cold; at the far most I was just slightly surprised given my experience with the Athlon FX 6300 CPU. Which doesn't draw as much power, but then, I am not sure how much this one actually drew. My CPU has in principle a far more potent cooler (Scythe Mugen 2-fan) than this GPU that has a much higher TDP. So perhaps incredulity for me there, but not really with regards to the current design, of course it would not be a cold heatpipe.

Nevertheless you learn by observing and it may set misconceptions right that might have been even if only extremely slightly, there: but in general this was just a statement of information.

It is the kind of fear that "people who think they know better" are gonna crack down on "noob posts like this" that I'm expressing here. People are often afraid to ask beginners' questions, because such responses invariably come. And a person like me might also be afraid to post beginners' observations because of this sentiment that "you should already know the obvious".

Yet I do not learn from copying other people's opinions. I learn from making primary observations myself. I was just curious as to how hot the heat pipes would be. I think it is very natural to be this curious. For example it could also have been possible that they were "hot to the touch" rather than "very hot to the touch" or even "I burned my finger, fuck". So I just posted an observation that belied (I mean revealed) my "noob status" to you and you kinda cracked down on it. That is why I was 'offended'.

Cistron wrote:
xan_user wrote:not being negative. just cant figure out where the idea that heatpipes, moving 100+ watts of heat, should not be "hot to the touch" comes from. just trying to nip this misconception in the bud, before it gains more steam.
*cough* :mrgreen:

So, if you only play SC1 and WOW, why not stick with a GTX950?
I would not be able to heat my room with that.

Nah, just kidding. My CPU is almost enough for that ;-).

I intend to play other games. Most noticably, I want to play Overwatch. I might also play Borderlands 2, but it's not like that one requires a 'fresh' GPU. In general, I have no clue how long this card is going to stay with me, but I suspect the card itself will remain useful for maybe even perhaps a year or 10 to come.

For my current games? A 750ti would suffice.

But I do not know what lies down the horizon.

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