R9 280x Matrix Platinum Issues

[Maniac]

Hi all,

I've had the R9 280x Matrix Platinum for about a week now and what a week! All be it a great card from my previous 6950 in terms of performance, it's just been a pain in the rear. Artifacts and game crashes have been plauging me and I've been trying so many different things to try and fix it, or at least what I can do.

Now there are lot's of things to consider before one simply says "RMA". Firstly, I'd rather avoid RMA until I'm absolutely sure its a physical problem. Fact is it's a brand new card where the BIOS and GFX drivers haven't been around long enough to be considered totally stable, or it least that's my view.

Now I've been on Tom's hardware posting my problems there, you can check it out here - http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1849838/280x-issues.html - You can see my specs and more details on what I've done so far.

To sum up, I have found lowering the GPU and memory clocks helps but so far still get some artifacts. Does anyone else who has the same card experiencing the same problems? Can it be fixed with software or is this a faulty unit/first batch?

Any help would be great.

[HiVizMan]

Forgive me but I am not wondering over to another site to see what has or has not been done.

RMA the card and get one that just works as it should.

[Maniac]

The reason for creating the thread was to find out whether other users with the same card are getting the same problem or not..

I don't want to wait for a 1-2 weeks (at least) for a new replacement to find the same problem occurring.

[HiVizMan]

I have the same card, and I do not have those issues. The point I was trying to make, albeit badly, was you paid top dollar and the product should just work out of the box. 🙂

[Zka17]

As far as I could figure out from my readings, the R9 280X Matrix Platinum is exactly the same as the Matrix HD7970 Platinum... - it's a rebadged product...

Now, as an owner of 3x Matrix HD7970 Platinums i can tell you one thing... - I could not get them working perfectly until I re-installed the OS (clean install)... although my cards didn't artifact from the beginning... but I used them only for benching, have no ide how they would behave in games...

So, I would just try a clean OS install, get all the Win updates and use the driver from the Asus site... if it's not working, then just RMA the card...

[Maniac]

Yes it's a clean OS, but still have the issue. It seems lowering the GPU/RAM clocks and upping the power control level to 110% has helped a lot, haven't experienced any problems.. yet..

Ideally the card should be returned for RMA, but then of course I'm without it for however long it takes. For what it's worth, and the fact I don't think overclocking is needed right now I think ill stay put - unless of course it gets worst. 😞

[heichalot]

Maniac wrote:
Hi all,

I've had the R9 280x Matrix Platinum for about a week now and what a week! All be it a great card from my previous 6950 in terms of performance, it's just been a pain in the rear. Artifacts and game crashes have been plauging me and I've been trying so many different things to try and fix it, or at least what I can do.

Now there are lot's of things to consider before one simply says "RMA". Firstly, I'd rather avoid RMA until I'm absolutely sure its a physical problem. Fact is it's a brand new card where the BIOS and GFX drivers haven't been around long enough to be considered totally stable, or it least that's my view.

Now I've been on Tom's hardware posting my problems there, you can check it out here - http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1849838/280x-issues.html - You can see my specs and more details on what I've done so far.

To sum up, I have found lowering the GPU and memory clocks helps but so far still get some artifacts. Does anyone else who has the same card experiencing the same problems? Can it be fixed with software or is this a faulty unit/first batch?

Any help would be great.

I think all 7970 cards (the 1050 clock class above) which is the same as 280x are having those issues.
true that the artifacts appear much lesser with newer drivers.

there is no problem with the core clock, you can even overclock it on gpu tweak.

apparently the problems are on the memory side, 3 problems;

1. standard gddr5 voltage is at 1.5v, while these later 7970s are on 1.6v. also memory clock higher than 6000 (1500) are hard to stabilize, especially when it is involving high power requirement games.
2. memory parts are always overheated (1.6v is high afterall), due to bad cooling system. the heatsink barely touching the ram chip.
3. amd powerplay; is trying to save power by auto-switching video memory between 2d & 3d clock, which causes screen flickers in both games and sometimes desktop.

you can see other's post for any temporary solution, but there is no fix for it yet.

my temporary solution using GPU tweak is:
1. set your 3D memory clock to 6268, using 1.520 voltage
this to reduce in game screen distortions, because it is either the chip cant handle high voltage or high speed memory clocks
2. set your 2D memory clock to 2400, same voltage
this should decrease the gap for 2d and 3d switches, and any 2d application "should" no longer causes flickers.


actually after writing all these, I just noticed your post in tom's hardware.
game crashes are usually caused by either wrong overclocking values or bad drivers.
if you leave those at stock clock and still crashing, it is mostlikely drivers problem (or card problem)

have you tried 13.11 beta 6 ?

my system crashes everytime I tried to install beta 6,
so I previously using 13.11 beta 1 and having no problem. but since I got ninja-trapped by upgrading to windows 8.1,
I decided to stick with 13.9 😞

sorry for the long post

[Maniac]

Thanks for the info heichalot, is there any chance you could post screen shots of your settings? Are you using GPU Tweak?

Cheers.

[heichalot]

yes, I am using gpu tweak,

here is mlink for screenshot.
http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?30199-Asus-ares-2/page31
but please IGNORE only the 2D clock screenshot.
I am using 2400 for my 2D memory clock


in the pic, I am using same clock as my 3D, which causes overheating while on heavy games.

[Maniac]

Thanks man, however instead of artifacts I get crashes 😞

Any ideas? I am going to try the following:

Memory Clock - 6000Mhz (from 6400Mhz)
Memory Voltage - 1510mV (from 1600mV)

Everything else is default, is that what you meant earlier - what the issue is?