Benching:
These cards are designed to be benched and as a result, these are very durable cards to survive. Having a higher quality card will last longer and operate with higher power efficiency that standard stock card.
Gaming or overclocking and the quality of MSI Lightning series is unmatched in the industry. Even though I did not take the heat sink off I was able to reach a world record result in 3Dmark 2006 taking the #1 spot, beating out other cards LN2 cooled using a modified AC unit blasting directly into the R9 290X card. The Afterburner software is the application of choice to test the limits and adjust and keep those settings you want to run.
Driver trouble:
I did have some trouble getting setup and drivers loaded on a system that had a different video card in it and I enjoyed an hour of attempting to install any drivers, I reloaded fresh and the problem was solved. Not saying you will have to reload, I went that route after googling a few times and having a few new SSD's laying around.
I have updated drivers several times since getting the card, no troubles since.
Gaming at 4K:
Use the display port and make sure it is set to 60Hz. My gaming PC is a 4790K @ 5Ghz with water cooling so my frame rates are between 60fps and 100fps @ 4K in everything making single card gaming at 4K very possible given that you have a decent PC.
When using the screen scaling/magnification at the desktop it effects the graphics and on screen graphic buttons slightly, but noticeable in Windows 7. For example, you are playing WOW and you click that little spell button to cast a spell. You are used to clicking that button, with scaling enabled at 150% your button looks the same but the click area inside is slightly smaller. I switched to Windows 8.1 and that problem went away.
Heat:
The card puts out a lot heat when gaming, idle it is nice and cool as you would expect. But when gaming a few hours it will raise the temperature of the room a few degrees. Make sure it is well ventilated so that it gets plenty of cool air.
Gaming on MSI R9 290X Lightening:
Well after a few months and a few hundred hours, awesome! I don't always use the "Ultra" settings rather I would rather have a better frame rate in FPS Racing or Shooting situation.
Adobe CC:
No issues at all, I work with large files and scrolling and manipulating very high resolution files on a 4K display was painless.
These cards are designed to be benched and as a result, these are very durable cards to survive. Having a higher quality card will last longer and operate with higher power efficiency that standard stock card.
Gaming or overclocking and the quality of MSI Lightning series is unmatched in the industry. Even though I did not take the heat sink off I was able to reach a world record result in 3Dmark 2006 taking the #1 spot, beating out other cards LN2 cooled using a modified AC unit blasting directly into the R9 290X card. The Afterburner software is the application of choice to test the limits and adjust and keep those settings you want to run.
Driver trouble:
I did have some trouble getting setup and drivers loaded on a system that had a different video card in it and I enjoyed an hour of attempting to install any drivers, I reloaded fresh and the problem was solved. Not saying you will have to reload, I went that route after googling a few times and having a few new SSD's laying around.
I have updated drivers several times since getting the card, no troubles since.
Gaming at 4K:
Use the display port and make sure it is set to 60Hz. My gaming PC is a 4790K @ 5Ghz with water cooling so my frame rates are between 60fps and 100fps @ 4K in everything making single card gaming at 4K very possible given that you have a decent PC.
When using the screen scaling/magnification at the desktop it effects the graphics and on screen graphic buttons slightly, but noticeable in Windows 7. For example, you are playing WOW and you click that little spell button to cast a spell. You are used to clicking that button, with scaling enabled at 150% your button looks the same but the click area inside is slightly smaller. I switched to Windows 8.1 and that problem went away.
Heat:
The card puts out a lot heat when gaming, idle it is nice and cool as you would expect. But when gaming a few hours it will raise the temperature of the room a few degrees. Make sure it is well ventilated so that it gets plenty of cool air.
Gaming on MSI R9 290X Lightening:
Well after a few months and a few hundred hours, awesome! I don't always use the "Ultra" settings rather I would rather have a better frame rate in FPS Racing or Shooting situation.
Adobe CC:
No issues at all, I work with large files and scrolling and manipulating very high resolution files on a 4K display was painless.
Record Result:
MSI 290X @ 1275/1650 @ 20c
3D Mark 2006
50000 3DMarks
First place 290X
CPU: 6Ghz 4c4t @ -120c
Memory: 2800C10 @ 20c
3D Mark 2006
50000 3DMarks
First place 290X
CPU: 6Ghz 4c4t @ -120c
Memory: 2800C10 @ 20c