WYP
News Guru
Manufacturer - XSPC
Price - £97.79
The launch of the R9 290X left users and reviewers with mixed thoughts, the card was a good performer but thermals and acoustics left Nvidia's existion options remain Supreme.
Over time this changed as 3rd parties like MSI or ASUS have brought us more advanced coolers which not just let AMD's Hawaii core run at its rated clock speeds but allow some real overclocking to be possible.
Today we look at XSPC's Razor Water-Block for the R9 290/290X, is water cooling required when so many good air based coolers are on the market?
Aesthetics
As far as aesthetics are concerned, the XSPC Razor R9 290X block uses the same styling XSPC has used since their Raystorm series, so this model will fit in perfectly into an existing XSPC loop.
The Water Block base is made of copper, with a stainless steel plate between the copper base and the Acrylic top. This acrylic top has 2x3mm holes for the placement of LEDs which can illuminate the block.
The Blocks Multiport connector gives the user a great deal of tube routing options with it's 7 G1/4" ports. XSPC also supplies you with 5 black chrome stoppers for your unused ports .
On the face of the water block is a black Brushed aluminium faceplate, which can be removed for potential painting or replacement.
Packaging
The Block Comes packages in a single cardbord box with the block, fittings and LEDs neatly packaged separate bubble wrap bags and held in place with thick pieces of soft foam. This package could travel through anything but a raging fire and arrive at your door undamaged, +1 XSPC.
As far as accessories go there are the before mentioned G1/4" stoppers, thermal tape for the GPUs ram and VRMs, XSPCs thermal compound for your GPU core, a set of XSPC Blue LEDs and all your requires washers and screws for Installation.
Overclocking and thermal performance.
For testing Today I will be using a Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X, given it used a AMD reference PCB. Results from testing this GPU will be cpmpared to when using this water block and using this Water block when Overclocked.
I managed to overclock by 150MHz on the core and by 250MHz on the GPU's memory, impressive given the reference R9 290 series cards could not even run at their stock speeds consistently.
As always the silicon lottery applies, your chip will be limited regardless of the cooling method used.
Thermals
Under load water cooling tames the volcano stored within AMD's Hawaii GPU core. Comparing the water block to sapphires yields a 32 degree drop in load temps and a staggering 53 degrees cooler than AMDs reference design.
When the watercooled GPU is overclocked the temps remain equally as impressive with only a 9 degrees increase in load temperature.
As far a noise is concerned the waterblock is as silent as the loop you attach it too, if you use leaf-blower for fans and a pump from a hydro electric dam noise will be a problem, but if like me you cherish silence and combine this Block with the right fans, radiators and pump you will be treated with silent operation, great thermals and overclocks a high as your components can manage.
Test Rig
All tests were conducted on the Rig below
Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X
Intel i5 4670k @ 4.6GHz
Gigabyte z87 G1-Sniper
Corsair White Vengeance @ 1600MHz
Cooler master Silent Pro M 1000W
Samsung 830 128GB
Windows 7 x64
AMD Catalyst 14.1 Driver
Water cooling Specifications
1x XSPC Raza CPU waterblock (intel i5 4670K @ 4.6GHz @ 1.3v)
1x XSPC Razor R9 290X water block
1x Phobya G-changer 280mm radiator (w/ 2x Aerocool Shark 140mm fans @7v)
1x Hardware Labs Black ICE 120mm radiator (w/ 2x Corsair SP120 fans @12v)
1x Black-Ice GT Stealth 240mm radiator (w/ 2x Corsair SP120mm fans @12v)
1xEK DCP 4.0 pump/reservoir (undervolted)
Performance
I will be rating performance of the Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X agains the overclocked performance using the XSPC R9 290/290X Water block.
Please bear in mind that when comparing this to your reference R9 290 that the Sapphire Tri-X model is not a reference card, with a stock clock speed of 1000MHz and without any thermal throttling due to the non stock cooling solution. Moving from a Reference 290X or 290 should see a larger performance increase as the thermal throttling will be prevented as well as the added overclocking potential adding to performance.
3DMARK
Like any good benchmarking session I will be starting with 3DMARK Vantage, 11 and 3DMARK. All of which benefit greatly from the overclocks, with gains ranging around 10-15% with the exception of Vantage P scores which lesser gains of 7% still is up nearly 2500 points
Gaming Benchmarks and Unigine
All gaming benchmarks are are done at the games highest in-game settings (Metro has Psysx off and Rome II is on Extreme Presets) at a resolution of 1440p.
As we can see here we gain an average of 5 FPS on each game by overclocking, with every game gaining at least 10% extra performance. These gain are impressive and very useful when running at such a high resolution.
Conclusion
With overclocks like these becoming more and more typical with the non-reference R9 290 series but this water block, much like any water block, can give you guy one thing. This thing is what I call the cooling Trifecta.
The Trifecta is when a cooler offers great cooling performance, silence and pleasing aesthetics. The XSPC Razor R9 290/290X water block meets these criteria, provided you have build youself a quiet loop. Looking at these results and even AMD's recently released one thing is for sure, Hawaii was just meant to be surrounded by water.
So what makes the XSPC model stand out compared to other manufacturers? Well from what i see it's visual flexibility, both in the hosing options and aesthetic options. Functionally XSPCs multiport design can allow for some very creative tube routing options as well as the added bling factor provided by the 5 Black Chrome stoppers. Then there is the LEDs which can be switched out to any colour the user desires (With me personally opting for Red lighting) and a brushed aluminium frontplate that could be painted any colour to match your own Rigs theme. Truly XSPC has provided us with some very desirable options which other manufacturers don't.
To finish off, there are impressive gains to be made across the board if you are considering water cooling a reference R9 290, 290X or even an aftermarket card (provided is has a reference PCB ). The thermal headroom provided will eliminate throttling and open up the option to overclock for further performance gains.
If I were able to give this an official award, I'd have to give it gold. Maybe some water blocks will be cheaper but XSPC offer a product which can be the centerpiece of any rig, regardless of your own visual style.
Price - 7/10
Performance - (9/10)
Presentation - (10/10)
If you have any questions, please post below and I will happily give you guys an answer. Thanks for reading.
Price - £97.79
The launch of the R9 290X left users and reviewers with mixed thoughts, the card was a good performer but thermals and acoustics left Nvidia's existion options remain Supreme.
Over time this changed as 3rd parties like MSI or ASUS have brought us more advanced coolers which not just let AMD's Hawaii core run at its rated clock speeds but allow some real overclocking to be possible.
Today we look at XSPC's Razor Water-Block for the R9 290/290X, is water cooling required when so many good air based coolers are on the market?
Aesthetics
As far as aesthetics are concerned, the XSPC Razor R9 290X block uses the same styling XSPC has used since their Raystorm series, so this model will fit in perfectly into an existing XSPC loop.
The Water Block base is made of copper, with a stainless steel plate between the copper base and the Acrylic top. This acrylic top has 2x3mm holes for the placement of LEDs which can illuminate the block.
The Blocks Multiport connector gives the user a great deal of tube routing options with it's 7 G1/4" ports. XSPC also supplies you with 5 black chrome stoppers for your unused ports .
On the face of the water block is a black Brushed aluminium faceplate, which can be removed for potential painting or replacement.
Packaging
The Block Comes packages in a single cardbord box with the block, fittings and LEDs neatly packaged separate bubble wrap bags and held in place with thick pieces of soft foam. This package could travel through anything but a raging fire and arrive at your door undamaged, +1 XSPC.
As far as accessories go there are the before mentioned G1/4" stoppers, thermal tape for the GPUs ram and VRMs, XSPCs thermal compound for your GPU core, a set of XSPC Blue LEDs and all your requires washers and screws for Installation.
Overclocking and thermal performance.
For testing Today I will be using a Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X, given it used a AMD reference PCB. Results from testing this GPU will be cpmpared to when using this water block and using this Water block when Overclocked.
I managed to overclock by 150MHz on the core and by 250MHz on the GPU's memory, impressive given the reference R9 290 series cards could not even run at their stock speeds consistently.
As always the silicon lottery applies, your chip will be limited regardless of the cooling method used.
Thermals
Under load water cooling tames the volcano stored within AMD's Hawaii GPU core. Comparing the water block to sapphires yields a 32 degree drop in load temps and a staggering 53 degrees cooler than AMDs reference design.
When the watercooled GPU is overclocked the temps remain equally as impressive with only a 9 degrees increase in load temperature.
As far a noise is concerned the waterblock is as silent as the loop you attach it too, if you use leaf-blower for fans and a pump from a hydro electric dam noise will be a problem, but if like me you cherish silence and combine this Block with the right fans, radiators and pump you will be treated with silent operation, great thermals and overclocks a high as your components can manage.
Test Rig
All tests were conducted on the Rig below
Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X
Intel i5 4670k @ 4.6GHz
Gigabyte z87 G1-Sniper
Corsair White Vengeance @ 1600MHz
Cooler master Silent Pro M 1000W
Samsung 830 128GB
Windows 7 x64
AMD Catalyst 14.1 Driver
Water cooling Specifications
1x XSPC Raza CPU waterblock (intel i5 4670K @ 4.6GHz @ 1.3v)
1x XSPC Razor R9 290X water block
1x Phobya G-changer 280mm radiator (w/ 2x Aerocool Shark 140mm fans @7v)
1x Hardware Labs Black ICE 120mm radiator (w/ 2x Corsair SP120 fans @12v)
1x Black-Ice GT Stealth 240mm radiator (w/ 2x Corsair SP120mm fans @12v)
1xEK DCP 4.0 pump/reservoir (undervolted)
Performance
I will be rating performance of the Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X agains the overclocked performance using the XSPC R9 290/290X Water block.
Please bear in mind that when comparing this to your reference R9 290 that the Sapphire Tri-X model is not a reference card, with a stock clock speed of 1000MHz and without any thermal throttling due to the non stock cooling solution. Moving from a Reference 290X or 290 should see a larger performance increase as the thermal throttling will be prevented as well as the added overclocking potential adding to performance.
3DMARK
Like any good benchmarking session I will be starting with 3DMARK Vantage, 11 and 3DMARK. All of which benefit greatly from the overclocks, with gains ranging around 10-15% with the exception of Vantage P scores which lesser gains of 7% still is up nearly 2500 points
Gaming Benchmarks and Unigine
All gaming benchmarks are are done at the games highest in-game settings (Metro has Psysx off and Rome II is on Extreme Presets) at a resolution of 1440p.
As we can see here we gain an average of 5 FPS on each game by overclocking, with every game gaining at least 10% extra performance. These gain are impressive and very useful when running at such a high resolution.
Conclusion
With overclocks like these becoming more and more typical with the non-reference R9 290 series but this water block, much like any water block, can give you guy one thing. This thing is what I call the cooling Trifecta.
The Trifecta is when a cooler offers great cooling performance, silence and pleasing aesthetics. The XSPC Razor R9 290/290X water block meets these criteria, provided you have build youself a quiet loop. Looking at these results and even AMD's recently released one thing is for sure, Hawaii was just meant to be surrounded by water.
So what makes the XSPC model stand out compared to other manufacturers? Well from what i see it's visual flexibility, both in the hosing options and aesthetic options. Functionally XSPCs multiport design can allow for some very creative tube routing options as well as the added bling factor provided by the 5 Black Chrome stoppers. Then there is the LEDs which can be switched out to any colour the user desires (With me personally opting for Red lighting) and a brushed aluminium frontplate that could be painted any colour to match your own Rigs theme. Truly XSPC has provided us with some very desirable options which other manufacturers don't.
To finish off, there are impressive gains to be made across the board if you are considering water cooling a reference R9 290, 290X or even an aftermarket card (provided is has a reference PCB ). The thermal headroom provided will eliminate throttling and open up the option to overclock for further performance gains.
If I were able to give this an official award, I'd have to give it gold. Maybe some water blocks will be cheaper but XSPC offer a product which can be the centerpiece of any rig, regardless of your own visual style.
Price - 7/10
Performance - (9/10)
Presentation - (10/10)
If you have any questions, please post below and I will happily give you guys an answer. Thanks for reading.
Last edited:
) and overall a well written review.
