Ready to confirm. When I install the drivers from the disk (the new Windows), the computer showed the gray screen of death. On the other drivers were immediately artifacts as in the screenshot. After installing the beta 14.11.2 problems disappeared.
ricko99 wrote:
The fact that AMD do not acknowledge their R9 series has serious artifact issues on all brands and the fact that ASUS and AMD do not work together to fix the cards is a shame. It's been a year since this card was launched (well 3 years if you count 7970) and this issue is not fixed.
There's nothing wrong with the 280x or the 7970 chips. I have two R9 280x cards in CF - I've had them for about a year (got them in december 2014), and they work great - BUT they are NOT Asus. One is a Sapphire Dual-X and one is a Gigabyte Windforce. No artefacts, no issues, and I do some heavy gaming. Before the 280x cards I had a 7970, and beforce that I had two 7950 cards - all Sapphire. No problems with any of them.
ricko99 wrote:
It's better to get an NVIDIA (a bit more expensive, but quality is assured) and obviously do not get it from ASUS as ASUS has the tendency to not care about their broken products.
Bull****. Remember back in 2005-2006? When lots of notebooks failed due to nvidia chipsets? They were even sued because of this. Remember the awsome GTX480 cards? With reference cooling they lasted anywhere from two to six months*. nVidia isn't any better. And to prove my point - my sister decided to replace her defective Asus Direct CU II 280x with a GTX 970. An Asus STRIX model to be precise. IT CAME DOA. When I installed the card, It showed no immediate problems, but after installing the driver, the PC hanged with a red screen. She then replaced the Asus card with a Palit Jetstream 970, yelling "I will never buy Ass-us again!" - This time the card worked for about 30 minutes, then artifacts even in desktop. I tested the Palit card on my PC as well - same problem, but I did not get artifacts in 2d, only in 3d, followed by a friendly "nvidia display driver has stopped responding and has recovered"/
Mind you, I have been buying Expert Color (Palit / Sapphire) cards since 1992 (when i received a Palit TSENG ET4000ax ISA card as a gift - witch I still have, and witch still works perfectly in my 386 retro PC) - and I've never had any problems with their cards - until my sister got the Jetstream 970.
The story does have a happy ending - the shop that sold us both defective cards offered a Gigabyte Windforce G1 GTX 970 witch was 65$ more then the palit for the same price my sister payed for the Asus 280x.
Here is a pic of the artifact-happy Asus 280x sitting on top of it's defective replacement, packed back into it's original box:
This story has two morals:
1. Don't belive the hype of youtube reviewer and big hardware review wersites. Research what you want to buy on smaller forums and such. If you want to buy a Zotac GTX 980 AMP! Omega Core (an example), just google "Zotac GTX 980 AMP! Omega Core Artifacts" or "Zotac GTX 980 AMP! Omega Core problems" and see what comes up.
2. Don't side with AMD OR nVidia. Both companies will release better or worse products depending on the product generation. I remember great nVidia products (Geforce 4 Titanium series) and horrible nVidia products (FX 5xxx series - slow, expensive and hot).
It's also good practice to wait a month or two at least before buying. If the product has issues, they will become apparent online.
* I do have one surviving GTX 480, but it's a Zotac AMP that came with a huge Zalman cooler. I RMAd two GTX480 cards in the span of a year before settling on the Zotac, and I still have it, and it still works. (added it to my GPU collection). Unlike 480s with reference cooling, the Zotac tops out at 70 celsius in a well ventilated case.
** My Gigabyte Windforce 3X R9 280x has a huge heat-spreader that covers ALL the ram and the VRM right under the huge 3 fan cooler. The Sapphire Dual-X does not, but the fans are so big they blow on all ram chips, unlike the Asus card where two chips are not receiving any cooling (the ones closest to the PCI-E slot).
