MSI Radeon R9290

[Tango]

Morning All,

Have always been a Nvidia fanboy, but with my new PC build I decided to go with AMD/MSI GPU's above. My question is this. How do I go about checking if my GPU cards have the updated drivers? Can I just download the latest AMD Catalyst driver or does it need to be a specific MSI driver?

Also, I am running two of these cards in Crossfire mode. I assume you will need to update each card or does the update address both the cards at the same time? I apologise if these questions sound "geeky" and no, I haven't googled anything at this point in time. I am hoping to get some good advice from you "wise old" men.

Thanks in advance.

 

[TJ99]

Not that old (or wise to be honest) but here it is:

Always download the Catalyst driver. MSI drivers will be very far behind and updated maybe once or twice.

And no, you only need to install it once. It's exactly the same as for nGreedia cards.

 

[Tango]

Not that old (or wise to be honest) but here it is:

Always download the Catalyst driver. MSI drivers will be very far behind and updated maybe once or twice.

And no, you only need to install it once. It's exactly the same as for nGreedia cards.

Cool, thanks TJ99. I will give it a shot. What I also noticed is that one card is not running(fans don't spin) when not in gaming mode. I take it that is normal for GPU's running in Crossfire mode? These cards run a bit on the HOT side and I am running FarCry 4 in Ultra mode!! Both GPU fans do spin when gaming though. . .

 

[Jase]

Not that old (or wise to be honest) but here it is:

Always download the Catalyst driver. MSI drivers will be very far behind and updated maybe once or twice.

And no, you only need to install it once. It's exactly the same as for nGreedia cards.

+1

I run a Sapphire and a Gigabyte R9290 and I use the catalyst drivers. No issues at all.

 

[TJ99]

Cool, thanks TJ99. I will give it a shot. What I also noticed is that one card is not running(fans don't spin) when not in gaming mode. I take it that is normal for GPU's running in Crossfire mode? These cards run a bit on the HOT side and I am running FarCry 4 in Ultra mode!! Both GPU fans do spin when gaming though. . .

The fans speed up and down depending on card temperature. To see the actual usage of each card, there's an option in the CCC (Catalyst Control Center) somewhere that shows you green pie charts or something, it's been a while. It also shows the temperatures. Unless you have a serious problem with blocked vents or broken fans or put the PC under a duvet, I doubt desktop cards at stock speeds get very hot. 80-90 degrees is a perfectly fine operating temperature for modern cards.

Not all games support CrossfireX by the way, and some have it disabled on purpose. You can always force it on through the CCC though by setting up a profile for that specific game.

 

[Tango]

GREAT!! Thanks guys, appreciate your inputs. . .

 

[psion]

When you not gaming the one card gets turned off, hence no fans.

Best practice when updating drivers is to uninstall old ones first.

 

[Tango]

When you not gaming the one card gets turned off, hence no fans.

Best practice when updating drivers is to uninstall old ones first.

I used to uninstall my old drivers on my Nvidia cards, till one day I just updated without removing the old driver first. After that I didn't worry.

I assumed that the new driver would do this for you in any case. I take it you have had some issues in the past, hence the uninstall and the install?

 

[psion]

Nah, Just updating "works", however the manufacturers recommend uninstalling. I suspect it might be to a file being locked then not getting updated.