XFX today launches a new series Radeon R9 290 graphics cards dubbed the Double Dissipation series. There are two models, obviously the Radeon R9 290X Double Dissipation (R9-290X-EDFD) and the R9 290... XFX launches Radeon R9 290 Series Double Dissipation Cards
They are not the only ones. Gigabyte did that for a 7970 card by making it impossible to set the voltage in later revisions of a card that was praised in reviews. They simply changed the hardware. That way they could get rid of lesser performing chips.
You must have been in on a different marketing meeting than me. They said it was because nVidia made them do it so they could say, "AMD does it too." /sarc.
Stock clocks, what a bummer. I really like XFX cards, they're well built. Never had any issues with them during the Nvidia era.
Who cares if it is stock clocked ?!?!? You can adjust the clock speeds via software to whatever your heart desires.
The only cards I have had trouble with were factory-overclocked. Even with more effective custom coolers they had stability issues. So I prefer non-overclocked as default.
If this Double D cooler is on par with the past generation of DDs, there shouldn't be any issue overclocking with these cards to match other factory overclocked models.
The HSF's were decent if my memory serves, the problem was a mounting issue I believe. I do agree that quality control needs to be a bit higher this time around for XFX GPU's.
The VRMs got too hot on the 7970s, there are thermal images around somewhere. XFX also voltlocked the Rev 3.0 7970s.
I'm confused, what is the point of changing the PCB and cooler for stock clocks? I mean, it doesn't technically "have" to be OC'd, but you'd think it would be....
stock clocks on the vanillas run the card at 95C, so one can see those clocks being fast enough. basically the vanillas shouldn't have been released if they push your gpu to 95C. this is all my opinion of course.