For red/black you can go with MSI Gaming series GPU lor.
Like I said and I repeat again, the Lightning yellow does match with Mpower and Xpower series MSI mobo.

naah i go sapphire r9 290X vaporx but my sec gpu is trix(bloody yellow) but lucky MSi G65 gaming bios got bright blue LED... (which i complain.. red/black theme but add blue led bios/ sec bios led is light Green)

Question:
I got this power consumption concern; my rig build is aiming for powerful build at lowest possible power consumption.

Its better to just buy better chip or factory oc one? (Dont tell me to do self oc yada yada. I dont have fancy time for that)

Lets say Sapphire Toxic R9-270x vw plain R9-280x

I know the performance between these two doesn't match, but which will offer better performance/watt?

For the price of R9-280x, better add a little bit more budget for a cheap GTX970 "reference" like Zotac/Gainward/Leadtek.

may i know budget, since your talking about getting GPU so i am guessing is for gaming! soo what Resolution your Current Monitor/Lcd ? and Wattage of your current PSU?

Best performance/watt is overrated.

I'm using very small casing without the nice airflow of nicer ATX casings, yet I can run R9 290 without any problems. I'm using it in no air-con room at my hometown now.
The thing you should look for is good custom coolers.

One more thing, R9 290 can run fine even with normal PSU. I can even run my card OCed till 1200Mhz on not-so-good Cooler Master Extreme 625. You only need to get better PSU if you're going to overclock the CPU as well.

uhh.. you people not answering my question.
Ok let me make it clearer.
I can have double CF R9-290 anytime if I want. In fact im using vaporx R9-290x right now. Since im the only one in the house and I pay my electricity bill myself, I know how crazy the 290x's power usage compared to 270x that i borrow from my friend.
Im using HAF X casing, I can cramp whatever I please inside (But not without the pain of dealing with dust).
so in more polite way of saying, budget doesn't really matter. I just downgrading my rig.

In several month, Ill be finishing my study and returning to my parent house and probably staying there for year or two. Right now, im paying all the power bill by myself. I don't really care how much electricity im spending on; but this is not the case on my parent home when im not the one who deal with bill.
I even migrating to Intel i7 platform instead from FX8350 (electricity sucking vampire), to seek better power efficiency as well lower TDP (Ill probably use igpu at most of time).

I dont want to completely stop gaming either or live in crappy GPU power all the time. I just want to lower the power usage, a bit; while being able to pop my GC in when I need it.
I have no interest of using Nvidia cards either. you know lah, that fanboyism thing. its hard to explain. (and everyone had their share too jangan tipu la ).

So that's it, my selection boils down to stock 280x or factory OC'ed 270x.
its strictly between power efficiency between those two. not pure performance or price.

Unseen83 I'm usng 23' monitor (1080) and 750w Xigmatek vector (80+ silver)PSU.

This post has been edited by failed.hashcheck: Nov 20 2014, 03:13 PM

HERE your ANSWER ! = it may have Very minor increase(RM25-30) in BILL Utilities, base on my Current Sapphire R9 290X OC 1080/1410 Crossfire (dual setting with power saving disable ULPS, 6-8 hour a day game time) + 3 air-cond(one air cond is on 18 hr a day)+ small semi detach house(3bedroom) electric appliance... i buy sec gpu on3rd october 2014 if this info help.. soo see on my bill just minor increase... just minus 2 day dinner at KFC can cover it..



yes i use VaporX+TriX both is OC edition when crossfire strangley it follow the high-end of the gpu... clock speed 1,080/1,410 auto without me set it.. hm


This post has been edited by Unseen83: Nov 20 2014, 05:23 PM

Ahh thanks for some info.
RM30 is a LOT ya know, considering my parents are ecogreenpowersavingsustainableearthforfuturegeneration type, they always have low monthly electricity bill; And I have to follow their suit

I'll still stick to my point, downgrading is kind of stupid since the power consumption "saved" isn't much anyways. The best is just move to intel i5 series such as i5 4460 or i7 which uses a little bit more power, both have huge gaming power upgrade over FX 8350 while uses alot less power.

You can simply set your Powertune settings of the 290X to limit the power consumption. Powertune 2.0 introduced in the AMD Hawaii GPU makes it very easy to set. Just put the Power Limit to around -30%. or anything you like, try and experiment around. Running the 290X slower can easily save you around 50-80 watts of power, while maintains around 280X performance.

EDIT: Btw, how much are your parent's house monthly electricity bills? My parents care alot about saving electricty too just like your parents, monthly bills around rm40-50 only. If kena complain senang saja, you need to reason with them back saja, not to mention power generation facilities are really efficient in electricity generations...

This post has been edited by terradrive: Nov 20 2014, 05:39 PM

B*** you just told me your RICH!

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-r...5-review,5.html
If you want to change GPU, then R9 285 is better than 280X and 270X. It uses slightly more power than 270X while alot faster than the 270X. It is not that expensive too.

My parent house around 80-90 (for 5 people). But during semester end when my other sibling coming back home as well the bill can easily reach RM300, and there go the lecture about power saving, wasting energy, importance to turn off stitch etc etc from my father
Throttling sounds like a good idea if it does reduce power consumption on idle as well, instead of just limiting max speed.
Need to experiment on this first maybe. If throttling able to reduce power on idle comparable to 270x then I dont have to buy new. (now where is my energy meter lol so long didn't use that already)

Im not that rich seriously lol
but again its not about money but frankly its about being a civilized son that doesn't suck their parent money on electricity bill

This post has been edited by failed.hashcheck: Nov 20 2014, 06:06 PM

u say got HAF X money no issues " on that previous post... hmm good parent... wanna trade parent.. help me to reduce my bill monthly..

HAF X not really expensive lah, considering the build quality and its crazy nice air flow quality
I think its actually very cheap for what it offer compared to other brand/model.

Haha our family consist of 11 people (football team family), we used to be so frugal when I and my siblings are all still in school back then.
Now all already in uni money is never a problem anymore but habits on power saving still there

Throttling won't be able to reduce idle power consumptions of the 290X.

We can do some simple calculations of the computer power consumptions (assuming the computer running at full load gaming):
400 watts X 10 hours per day X RM0.44/kWh X 30 days = RM 52.80
If two PCs then ~RM100, no where near the extra RM 220, maybe you should check on limiting your aircon usage. Aircon normally use about 1000 watts per hour, that's like RM0.44 per hour at max electricity rates!

Not to mention at idling the PC uses alot less power, should be less than 100 watts if using intel CPUs.

just turn off the PC whenever not in use then, best power saving method

like terradrive said, downgrading degrades the user satisfaction and doesnt provide enough returns in savings of electricity

were not in the older days where PC chugs power like us chugging water, both sides are extremely power efficient already

in fact, i think its much better if you start looking at other electronic devices at your parents house first. things like switching on lights in your room can easily exceed what your PC idle at times

http://www.lowyat.net/2014/11/samsung-anno...ra-hd-monitors/

Death of G-Sync imminent?

AMD's grand comeback at nVidia in 2015 commencing?

yeah sound nice year for AMD 2015. AMD R9 380/390 series using HBM which is 9x faster than DDR5 and now Samsung UHD590 Support Freesync as standard...

haha since when radeon has become saving electric thread

haha screw that...RM30 is small sum nia considering i ditch all outdoor entertainment and fast food chains lulz