Benchmark System And Procedure
We collaborated with HAMEG (Rohde & Schwarz) to upgrade our power consumption measurement system. It’s now one step away from being complete. Our final goal is to replace the remaining multimetre measurements and only use them to confirm our results. There's a little bit of soldering work left in order to get wires permanently attached to the system, and then installed in a dedicated space. I simply haven't had time for this with all of the different launches happening over the past couple of months.

We record all channels and the corresponding oscilloscope value/curves for our measurements. The very precise and, more important, fast current clamps yield 100 mV/A, making it easy to calculate the power based on the voltage. We also record the supply voltage to multiply its value with the recorded amperage. Depending on the resolution we choose, this procedure yields a very detailed power consumption history. We generally set this to 1 ms, allowing us to capture all fluctuations attributable to AMD’s PowerTune or Nvidia’s GPU Boost technology.
| Measurement Procedure | Non-Contact Direct Current Measurement at the PCIe Slot |
|---|---|
| Measurement Apparatus | Oscilloscope: Power Clamp: Voltage Divider Probe: Digital Multimetre: |
| Bench Table | Microcool Banchetto 101 |
| Test Hardware | AMD FX-8350 (Piledriver), Overclocked to 4.5 GHz Corsair H100i Compact Water Cooling Solution 16 GB (2 x 8) Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1866 Asus 990FX Sabertooth + Modified PCIe Adapter with Current Loops |
| Power Supply | Corsair AX860i with Modified Plugs (Pickup) |
Power Consumption While Running A Gaming Loop
"How much power does a graphics card draw during gaming?" and "How much heat does it generate under load?" are the most commonly asked questions once we wrap up our analysis of 3D performance. Our testing is made as real-world as possible by measuring cards that have already been warmed up.

This high-resolution measurement shows why power supplies can be overwhelmed unless they have ample output headroom. Even if a PSU's specs suggest it should be able to handle a given card, some very brief (often less than 10 ms), but very high peaks can cause a power supply's protection circuitry to engage.
Power Consumption: Radeon R9 290



Power Consumption: Radeon R9 290X



- Cooling The Radeon R9 290 And 290X
- Technical Specifications
- Dimensions And Weight
- Gaming Power Consumption
- Gaming Performance
- Temperatures
- Noise And Fan Speed
- Video Comparison
- Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290
- Radeon R9 290 Reference + Arctic Accelero Extreme III
- Asus R9 290X DirectCU II OC
- Gigabyte R92 290X Windforce OC
- Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-TRI-X-Battlefield-Edition-Graphics/dp/B00HFA44GE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1390932273&sr=8-2&keywords=290x+sapphire
^290 Version
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-TRI-X-Graphics-512-Bit-PCI-E/dp/B00HFA45FY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1390932289&sr=8-4&keywords=290x+sapphire
^290X version.
Few in stock!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-TRI-X-Battlefield-Edition-Graphics/dp/B00HFA44GE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1390932273&sr=8-2&keywords=290x+sapphire
^290 Version
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-TRI-X-Graphics-512-Bit-PCI-E/dp/B00HFA45FY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1390932289&sr=8-4&keywords=290x+sapphire
^290X version.
Few in stock!
I bought the Gigabyte last week. I saw those and OcUK brought a few back in-stock. But the GB costed me like 440, so we are talking more than 60 quid for a couple of frames from the extra frames. Plus the trouble of sending the other one back
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-TRI-X-Battlefield-Edition-Graphics/dp/B00HFA44GE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1390932273&sr=8-2&keywords=290x+sapphire
^290 Version
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-TRI-X-Graphics-512-Bit-PCI-E/dp/B00HFA45FY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1390932289&sr=8-4&keywords=290x+sapphire
^290X version.
Few in stock!
I bought the Gigabyte last week. I saw those and OcUK brought a few back in-stock. But the GB costed me like 440, so we are talking more than 60 quid for a couple of frames from the extra frames. Plus the trouble of sending the other one back
I suppose some people just have the money to spend, I hopefully will be getting a 290X Sapphire. But I am doing a mass upgrade on the visual department.
I suppose some people just have the money to spend, I hopefully will be getting a 290X Sapphire. But I am doing a mass upgrade on the visual department.
If you are from the UK, get it from Dabs. Cheapest one and Dabs' customer service is excellent.
I am tempted returning the GPU due to its' temps and either trying my luck with the Sapphire from Dabs or 780 (Ti). I just built a mini-ATX rig, I don't mind 80c, but trying to CF them after will be a suicide I guess.
I suppose some people just have the money to spend, I hopefully will be getting a 290X Sapphire. But I am doing a mass upgrade on the visual department.
If you are from the UK, get it from Dabs. Cheapest one and Dabs' customer service is excellent.
I am tempted returning the GPU due to its' temps and either trying my luck with the Sapphire from Dabs or 780 (Ti). I just built a mini-ATX rig, I don't mind 80c, but trying to CF them after will be a suicide I guess.
I guess the aftermarket cards don't seem to do much, for temps but still of a lot better than the base card.
I guess the aftermarket cards don't seem to do much, for temps but still of a lot better than the base card.
I am wondering if CF is possible. Tempted to get a 2nd one to try and then return it.
Defientely better than the base card.
I guess the aftermarket cards don't seem to do much, for temps but still of a lot better than the base card.
I am wondering if CF is possible. Tempted to get a 2nd one to try and then return it.
Defientely better than the base card.
If you do this, let me know would be interesting to find out of it works.
I guess the aftermarket cards don't seem to do much, for temps but still of a lot better than the base card.
I am wondering if CF is possible. Tempted to get a 2nd one to try and then return it.
Defientely better than the base card.
If you do this, let me know would be interesting to find out of it works.
Just run the Tomp Raider benchmark. Got 73 FPS min, 86 average and 103 max! Running on 1080p, maxxed with TressFx. The card is OCed at 1150MHz/6000MHz, with average 85c during it and the fans around 70%.
I guess the aftermarket cards don't seem to do much, for temps but still of a lot better than the base card.
I am wondering if CF is possible. Tempted to get a 2nd one to try and then return it.
Defientely better than the base card.
If you do this, let me know would be interesting to find out of it works.
Just run the Tomp Raider benchmark. Got 73 FPS min, 86 average and 103 max! Running on 1080p, maxxed with TressFx. The card is OCed at 1150MHz/6000MHz, with average 85c during it and the fans around 70%.
Temps seem pretty mad with all the FX run with the benchmark. I am still on the fence about the R9 290X Gigabyte or Sapphire. Sapphire is around £501 whilst Gb are £380~.
I guess the aftermarket cards don't seem to do much, for temps but still of a lot better than the base card.
I am wondering if CF is possible. Tempted to get a 2nd one to try and then return it.
Defientely better than the base card.
If you do this, let me know would be interesting to find out of it works.
Just run the Tomp Raider benchmark. Got 73 FPS min, 86 average and 103 max! Running on 1080p, maxxed with TressFx. The card is OCed at 1150MHz/6000MHz, with average 85c during it and the fans around 70%.
Temps seem pretty mad with all the FX run with the benchmark. I am still on the fence about the R9 290X Gigabyte or Sapphire. Sapphire is around £501 whilst Gb are £380~.
Where is it 380? I found it 440 with BF4 (the one I got) and 430 without BF4. Go with the Gigabyte, not worth the extra 120 pounds.
Hitman Absolution: My 4470K at 4.6GHz, GPU running on stock and I got 73 average on the benchmark. Did it 3 times. Settings were maxed out, expect MSAA set at x2. Based on GPU-Z my average temps were around 75c.
I guess the aftermarket cards don't seem to do much, for temps but still of a lot better than the base card.
I am wondering if CF is possible. Tempted to get a 2nd one to try and then return it.
Defientely better than the base card.
Amazon.co.uk was where it was at £380, but not bad!
If you do this, let me know would be interesting to find out of it works.
Just run the Tomp Raider benchmark. Got 73 FPS min, 86 average and 103 max! Running on 1080p, maxxed with TressFx. The card is OCed at 1150MHz/6000MHz, with average 85c during it and the fans around 70%.
Temps seem pretty mad with all the FX run with the benchmark. I am still on the fence about the R9 290X Gigabyte or Sapphire. Sapphire is around £501 whilst Gb are £380~.
Where is it 380? I found it 440 with BF4 (the one I got) and 430 without BF4. Go with the Gigabyte, not worth the extra 120 pounds.
Hitman Absolution: My 4470K at 4.6GHz, GPU running on stock and I got 73 average on the benchmark. Did it 3 times. Settings were maxed out, expect MSAA set at x2. Based on GPU-Z my average temps were around 75c.