MSI Radeon R9 290X GAMING 4GB 512-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Pros: Very well made card with top notch components

Cons: Can get hot if you don't have a well ventilated case

Pros: Card is very powerful handles anything including 4k

Cons: Black Screen Issues unusable
Coil Whine Was horrid!!
Loud As a microwave oven
HOT when i say HOT I MEAN HOT 200plus degrees F
The air coming out of my case felt like the air coming off a Space heater

Other Thoughts: Just go with another brand or something else this card is not a quality product at all.MSI Unreachable? thankfully newegg stepped in and help me out.Biggest waste of my hard earned Money EVER period. NEVER buying a MSI Product again.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,
Based on the symptom you reported, we suggest you checking following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected correctly and firmly.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, CPU and verify with a different power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Hynix memory + Back plate + Efficient TwinFrozr cooler+ GTX 970 or > speed but less dineros + 4gb(lol) + 512 bit bus + Very sweet looking = TITZZ

Cons: If you bought this when it was $780

Other Thoughts: It's time to buy this card.

Pros: very fast, ultra settings at 1440p resolution at 100hz refresh rate, on BattleField 4 and Crysis 3 at very good frame rates. very realistic looking gaming, physics even look great. physically look great. ultra smooth.
no driver issues.
great price, can't beat price to performance.

Cons: I think it hit 80c in my case the other day playing BF4 on ultra settings at 1440p.
fans I believe need MSI afterburner to throttle up during high temps,
MSI afterburner software has crashed my PC twice.
raptr software doesn't work well with twitch live streaming in battlefield4
I think the temps usually range from 65c as high as 80c in a small case.

Pros: -Can play any game in 1080P (Battlefield 4, Farcry 4, Watch dogs) at max settings.
-Very nice thermal plate on the bottom of the card that helps with cooling.
-Dual Bios for easy overclocking.
-Cools down after gaming very quick.
-Very easy overclocking.

Cons: -Fans will get loud during gaming.
-Runs hot without proper cooling during gaming.

Other Thoughts: I have been through three different cards these last months. The Geforce GTX 660, Radeon R9 270X, and the Geforce GTX 780. None of these cards were up to par in performance to meet my needs. Until I purchased this card. Scores a graphics score of over 16,000 in futuremark 11! Was easily able to overclock the core clock from 1030mhz to 1100mhz with only minimal temp gains. With a nice case with a lot of fans you will not exceed 170 degrees Fahrenheit also. Upon purchasing this card I was very tempted to not get it due to it not fitting in my case (Needs at least 10.8 inches of room). Although it did end up fitting fine in my CM Storm Scout case even though it says it can only fit a 10.6 inch card. The Twin Frozr fans do a decent job of keeping this card cool, but will get loud. There is a silent setting that ensures the fan does not exceed 40% which is a nice touch if you do not like loud cards.

Pros: * Runs Quiet
* Hynix Memory
* VRM temps are great
* Backplate included
* Performance is great with Omega drivers!
* Great 3 year serial based warranty

Cons: * Mediocre core overclock ability on my specific card (Never a given though)
* Nothing else for the $260 I got the card for after Rebate and Gift Card

Other Thoughts: I own a Asus Strix GTX 980. It is a great card but since this 290X was priced so well I wanted to compare them for myself.

First of All the MSI Gaming 290X is big, but this is normal for R9 290 series cards. It offers a nice backplate and the normal Twin Frozr fan setup, which is a solid performer. The fans are very quiet. At 100% are about as loud as the Strix at 70% fan speed.

Overclocking is easy using afterburner. My card came with Hynix memory which easily overclocked from 5000Mhz to 6000Mhz. The core was not as willing and even with +100mv could only run 1135Mhz artifact free. Above that would eventually get an artifact here and there when gaming for extended periods of time. Still, this is okay, just not a great Overclock. Max temps I saw when overclocked was 76C, without OC max temp was 69C.

Power consumption of the 290X series is pretty high, as much as 70-100W more than the GTX 970 or 980 at 100% load, but about even with the 780ti. If you live someplace like I do with cheap electricity, that is only $7 extra a year if you game 25 hours a week in comparison to a GTX 970.

I did some performance comparisons with my GTX 980 which is overclocked to 1480/7800 and my 290X at 1135/6000. I was pretty surprised that the performance was closer than I though it would be considering the 290X is essentially half the price I paid for the 980.

The latest AMD Omega Drivers are great. I had no issues at all with them when playing and testing on my dual monitor set up.

All my tests ran at 2560x1600 and MAX settings and 2xMSAA except for Shadow of Mordor where HIGH textures were used and Far Cry 4 used Volumetric Fog. To level playing field Physx is off and Nvidia Gameworks features like HBAO+ and soft shadows are lowered to SSAO and Highest Shadow setting available. Frame rates listed are average over 4 minutes of gameplay.

*****************GTX 980******290X***
Metro:LL**********33.37*******30.45**9%
Middle Earth:SOM**62.14*******59.52**4%
BioShock Infinate 87.29*******75.4***14%
Dragon Age Inq****53.9********54.2***-
Far Cry 4*********59.9********52.6***12%
Valley 1.0********42.2********39.8***6%
Assassins Creed U*42.11*******36.6***13%

Overall the performance difference is an average of 8.3% at my resolution. This is close enough that I can easily recommend this 290X due to great performance, nice build quality and cool and quiet operation. Performing so close to a $560 GTX 980 for only $260 earns 5 eggs from me!

Pros: Runs the games I am currently playing on max settings smoothly(no stutter) at 1080p with decent framerates. FarCry 4, BF 4, and Crysis 3, which I had but never played before. I am using the fairly new Omega drivers. from AMD.

Cons: The gaming app does not work correctly for me. It would not go from 1030mhz to 1040 mhz. I checked the config file and 1040mhz was not even in the profile. I could not add it to the profile. This was the gaming app on the disk . The latest from MSI would not even load. Kept getting does not support this application error.

Other Thoughts: I don't think 10mhz would make much of a difference anyways. This card runs fine at 1030mhz which is the default setting at load. Temps are reasonable 74c was the max I recorded, in a warm room. That was while playing Crysis 3. Max was 65c playing BF 4

MSI afterburner works fine. I am using the newest version. Just using it for framerate and temp monitoring, though I'm sure at some point I will record some gameplay.

I have no intention on overclocking this card. I may however buy a second one for crossfire at a later date. At this point I still give it 5 eggs as I really don't care that the gaming app did not work for me correctly.

FX 8350@4.62ghz/ H80i cooling
Sabertooth 990fx r2.0 mb
4x2 for 8gb Gskill 1866 memory
MSI R9 290x gaming 4g
Hauppauge -1250 tv tuner
240gb M500 ssd
500gb Caviar blue sata
Corsair 750w bronze modular
Storm Scout 2 case

Pros: 4 GB memory. 3 auto clock settings.. 1040MHz (OC mode)
1030MHz (Gaming mode) -- 1000MHz (Silent mode) Plays all games on max settings.

Cons: none so far

Other Thoughts: I bought this card to compare it against the MSI Gaming 4GB NVIDIA
GPU GeForce GTX 760. Both cards perform well and play most games on max settings. I think it boils down to preference between AMD and Nividia. I happen to like the Radeon R9 slightly more...

Pros: All Pro's No Issues.
I have not experienced any black screens or glitches.
I'm running 2 of these in crossfire. No interconnect cable required and no active display port needed for eyefinity. Just put all your game settings to the max and enjoy.

Cons: After great consideration and testing.....no cons

Other Thoughts: These replaced 2 7850's. 1 290x scores higher than the 2 7850's.
For single monitors 1 card is fine but for eyefinity you need the extra power. As for heat, the bottom card stays a cool 70c at full load. The top Card will hit 94c and throttle the gpu frequency which results in a 5 to 10 fps drop. which is completely unnoticed while gaming.
3dmark firestrike 2x7850 score 7900
1 290x scored 10200 2x290x scored 15480
These cards are HUGE and barely fit the case. If they were even an 1/8th inch longer they would not have fit. measure your case first. some of the 290x cards are an inch or more longer than these!

Pros: EVERYTHING!!! Great card runs everything at Max settings. Even supports graphics software (UnReal UDK, Max 3d,etc.) and creation software (Adobe Pr,AE etc)

Cons: NONE Con's what Con's

Other Thoughts: originally bought the card cause of upgrading it and a new monitor but was worried about it supporting the Adobe Suite software (Pr,AE ,etc) but installed fine and runs AE way better than my old card did render times cut by 60-75% HIGHLY RECOMMEND but you will need a Beefy power supply I have an OCZ 1K watt psw