Benchmark System And Procedure
We collaborated with HAMEG (Rohde & Schwarz) to upgrade our power consumption measurement system.

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 Non-Contact Direct Current Measurement at the External PCIe Power Supply Direct Voltage Measurement 3.3 V / 12 V |
|---|---|
| Measurement Apparatus | Oscilloscope: Power Clamp: Voltage Divider Probe: Digital Multimeter: |
| 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
- Gigabyte GV-R929OC-4GD R9 290 Windforce OC
- Radeon R9 290 + Arctic Accelero Extreme III
- Asus R9290X-DC2OC-4GD5 R9 290X DirectCU II OC
- HIS R9 290X IceQ X² Turbo
- Gigabyte GV-R929XOC-4GD R9 290X Windforce OC
- MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G
- Sapphire Tri-X OC R9 290X
I would like to know this more precisely please... I can't found any rage in my articles, only a chip with a very high temperature density and a lot of unusable coolers because the engineers were not able to build a matching cooler for this cards. This high density will be a global problem for all next-gen chips too. Without a vapor chamber this won't work.
Coupled with other recent reviews, Sapphire's Tri-X OC series looks to be great cards, especially when you make a custom fan curve to further reduce idle and load noise.
I can not wait to see the 20nm updates, especially if AMD gets around to pulling a Titan with their reference coolers!
I would like to know this more precisely please... I can't found any rage in my articles, only a chip with a very high temperature density and a lot of unusable coolers because the engineers were not able to build a matching cooler for this cards. This high density will be a global problem for all next-gen chips too. Without a vapor chamber this won't work.
Coupled with other recent reviews, Sapphire's Tri-X OC series looks to be great cards, especially when you make a custom fan curve to further reduce idle and load noise.
I can not wait to see the 20nm updates, especially if AMD gets around to pulling a Titan with their reference coolers!
It is nice that a company has paid attention and we have a solution that doesn't involve a series of carefully engineered zip ties...
A good PSU has a lot of primary caps inside to compensate this peaks without any problem. The question should better be: What's about the life-span of this caps under this conditions? This is one of the reasons to buy a PSU with good and not with so-called "bad" caps. If you buy cheap you buy twice...
But Nvidia is not much better. I've checked this in another article:
A good PSU has a lot of primary caps inside to compensate this peaks without any problem. The question should better be: What's about the life-span of this caps under this conditions?
But Nvidia is not much better. I've checked this in another article:
FormatC your avatar gave me cancer...
Ok, use 8x MSAA to prevent you before edge flares