TEMPERATURE & POWER CONSUMPTION
To measure both power consumption and heat, we stress the video card and record the peak values for heat and wattage. We use default values on the cards and stress test them using a mix of Kombustor Dx11 Burn-In Test with Post-FX.
[singlepic id=15507 w=550 h=600 float=center] [singlepic id=15508 w=550 h=600 float=center]Notice how the power draw of the reference Sapphire R9 290X is completely different than that of the custom-cooled ASUS R9 290X, this is where Powertune2.0 is in effect. Our card heats up so much, it drops its clocks to around 700-800Mhz consuming much less power but at the same time outputting lower performance figures. Sad to say, there is really no point going for reference R9 290X or 290 if you won’t be watercooling. The cooler is pathetic and at 55% (Uber mode) the card is already very audible, blasting it up to 100% is just unbearable.
