Measuring the Power Draw
The following diagrams contain a text header, which is followed by the actual measurement curves. In that header, you'll find the average and peak power draw on all three rails, along with the sum of those averages, giving us the total average and peak power consumption.
Total peak wattage is not simply the sum of the three individual peaks, but rather the total peak wattage observed within the 120-second sample window. That makes more sense than adding the peak wattages together, since it's unlikely that all three max out at the same moment.
Power Consumption during Gaming
These diagrams employ a logarithmic scale. The thick red line represents average total power draw at a time resolution of six seconds.
The average power consumption demonstrated by PowerColor's PCS+ R9 290X is 262 W, in line with what we expected. That's 3 W higher than the 30 MHz-faster MSI R9 290X Lightning. Approximately half of a watt can be attributed to the PowerColor card's memory, which operates at 1350 MHz, rather than 1250 MHz. But a few watts could be lost by less complex voltage regulation circuitry.
Still, the differences are small. And while the PCS+ R9 290X may exhibit slightly higher power use, it also pulls about 10 W less from the motherboard slot than MSI's card.

Power Draw During Internet Surfing
People don’t spend all of their time gaming; typically, much more is spent browsing the Web. We simulate this workload with a static version of our home page, scrolling all the way down and back up again. While scrolling does make use of hardware acceleration, the power draw for that is quite benign.

Power Draw at Idle Load
Many people leave their PCs on all the time, making the power consumption of components at idle quite important. Measuring draw from the wall doesn't cut it if we want to isolate the graphics card, since there's no way to reliably factor out the rest of the platform.
Our state-of-the-art test equipment shows that this graphics card only draws 13.7 W at idle, which is less than our previous generation of lab instruments indicated:

Well, since you are comparing a non reference GPU, you should take also a non-reference GPU to compare.
Tom's using Gigabyte's 780ti OC which costs the same as the reference card...
So even the non-reference models are on a different tier as well as their reference...
Typical translation errors, the original is in metric
http://www.tomshardware.de/powercolor-r9-290x-pcs-review,testberichte-241519-3.html4
I will clearify with Chris, that we use both in the future. Metric is worldwide more common
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_780_Ti_SC_ACX_Cooler/26.html
With such a HUGE difference in prices, quality, and performance on all top-end cards you really have to do your research.
The R9-290X prices vary from $550 to $780 USD!
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_780_Ti_SC_ACX_Cooler/26.html
With such a HUGE difference in prices, quality, and performance on all top-end cards you really have to do your research.
The R9-290X prices vary from $550 to $780 USD!
Thanks for the response! I thought I had seen reviews elsewhere that showed the 290 series really closing the gap, or even surpassing the 780ti at higher resolutions, but perhaps I was remembering wrong. I recently decided to upgrade to a dual-290 setup, but if I had gone with a single card, the 780ti was at or near the top of my list (until the 290x prices came crashing down, that is).
See these articles for after-market cooling options:
Air cooling:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/r9-290-accelero-xtreme-290,3671.html
Liquid Cooling:
How to:
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Using-NZXT-Kraken-G10-Watercool-Radeon-R9-290
And results:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-r9-290-and-290x,review-32872.html
I was more wondering about the value of getting the 290x for $350. I could buy an after market cooler for $50-75. I'm just not sure if it is a worth while upgrade.
For total upgrade worthwhileness ( is that even a word/term? ) what kind of resolution are you going for? Most of the top-end cards are complete overkill if you're not playing above 1080p. If you're not using 1440p or triple displays, I wouldn't bother going above a GTX 770 / R9 280.
I am questioning Toms review about the temps. Temps on Hardwarecanucks are showing something entirely different giving the PCS+ the best temps of all the 290x cards offered. A wooping 63C... even mines have never reach up 67C...
Not to forget the only viable 4k option right now in Crossfire.