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Power Consumption

Radeon R9 290X Review: AMD's Back In Ultra-High-End Gaming
By , Igor Wallossek

Idle and Multi-Monitor Loads

The Radeon R9 290X’s power consumption at idle is surprisingly high. Even though AMD makes a point of highlighting its ZeroCore Power feature, which does drop the card to a miserly 5 to 6 W, you only enjoy the benefit of this when your monitor is in suspend mode. As soon as the desktop becomes active, power consumption jumps to 20 W with one monitor connected. Connect two and you’re looking at 57 W. Three monitors take you all the way up to 59 W. This means that the R9 290X consumes more power than two overclocked GeForce GTX 780s in SLI with more than one monitor attached.

Hardware Accelerated Video Output

During Blu-ray playback (or other accelerated video work), AMD's Radeon R9 290X consumes 70 W. This is bizarre, since the Radeon R7 240 does the same thing under 17 W. AMD clearly has some driver work to do still.

Onwards and Upwards: Gaming

After that negative attention, PowerTune kicks in to do the job it's supposed to do. The technology makes its adjustments so quickly that it's difficult to express average power consumption using one number. There's a lot of variation, and the reading changes based on several factors.

Because we can't be as objective as we'd want, we're providing a range instead. To achieve this, we left the power limit alone in CCC and lowered the board's target temperature to 70 degrees Celsius. The resulting cooling performance is about on par with what AMD’s partners offer on existing cards in the same thermal class, giving us a preview of what they might achieve with their own cooling solutions and R9 290X.

Power figures between 185 and 218 W are pretty darned good in the ultra-high-end segment. In light of these results, I think we can forgive the idle numbers we recorded earlier.

When Push Comes to Shove: The Peak Values

If you want to take the Radeon R9 290X to its limits, then you need to push it hard by increasing its power limit and dropping the target temperature. Under those conditions, it's possible to exceed 300 W. We even saw 335 W from the card, though that's probably not at all something you want to reproduce.

The 225 W we measured using a compute-heavy load and stock settings can be pushed as high as 295 W by giving the fan more room to spin up and targeting a lower thermal ceiling. Unfortunately, those conditions don't last. Once the Radeon R9 290X hits its target temperature, power consumption drops considerably. This explains the card’s relatively low performance in our GPGPU benchmarks.

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Top Comments
  • 99 Hide
    BigMack70 , October 23, 2013 10:04 PM
    Thank goodness AMD had some sense with the pricing. Finally, at long last, Nvidia can stop raping consumers' wallets due to lack of competition.

    This is win-win-win for everyone (except maybe Nvidia).

    Hope we never have to deal with a $1000 single GPU fiasco again. Good riddance.
  • 79 Hide
    beta212 , October 23, 2013 9:09 PM
    That's incredible. Especially at high res, I wonder how they do it. But the low price alone is enough to blow the competition away. Seriously think about it, it's around half the price for higher performance!
    - AMD: We're not aiming for the ultra high end.
    I think Nvidia just got trolled.
  • 60 Hide
    anxiousinfusion , October 23, 2013 9:37 PM
    Wait the 290 X... X? is going to be $550?! Forgive me, padre for I have sinned.
Other Comments
  • 79 Hide
    beta212 , October 23, 2013 9:09 PM
    That's incredible. Especially at high res, I wonder how they do it. But the low price alone is enough to blow the competition away. Seriously think about it, it's around half the price for higher performance!
    - AMD: We're not aiming for the ultra high end.
    I think Nvidia just got trolled.
  • 29 Hide
    slomo4sho , October 23, 2013 9:12 PM
    Great price point. This card has already broken world records just a few hours after release!


  • 25 Hide
    aznguy0028 , October 23, 2013 9:19 PM
    I was thinking about hopping on the 7970ghz when it's on sale, but after seeing this, it's time to break apart the piggy bank for the 290x, what value!
  • 33 Hide
    Benthon , October 23, 2013 9:21 PM
    Like the conclusion said, you just can't argue about aesthetics and thermals at this price point/performance. Well done AMD, lets see team green's response! Go consumer!
  • 21 Hide
    tuklap , October 23, 2013 9:25 PM
    This is awesome for us ^_^
  • 23 Hide
    Shankovich , October 23, 2013 9:27 PM
    Wow, and it's pegged at 73% too. Even if nVidia's "780ti" beats the 290X, it probably won't beat a 290X running at full power. And if mantle does make some big performance boosts, nVidia is going to be in a really tight spot. Looking forward to what they'll do. In the mean time, loving this competition! We all win in the end.
  • 13 Hide
    julianbautista87 , October 23, 2013 9:31 PM
    daaaaayyyyyuuuummmm
  • 60 Hide
    anxiousinfusion , October 23, 2013 9:37 PM
    Wait the 290 X... X? is going to be $550?! Forgive me, padre for I have sinned.
  • 21 Hide
    Darkerson , October 23, 2013 9:40 PM
    Good job, AMD!
  • 21 Hide
    jkhoward , October 23, 2013 9:40 PM
    I just purchased this card from Newegg.
  • 15 Hide
    CaptainTom , October 23, 2013 9:41 PM
    Wow AMD. GG! You exceeded every possible expectation! Have fun with your GTX 780 Ti Fanboys!!!!!
  • 19 Hide
    ilysaml , October 23, 2013 9:42 PM
    Time to Upgrade my HD 6950 to 290X, and my 1080P to 2500x Monitor.
  • 37 Hide
    lt_dan_zsu , October 23, 2013 9:44 PM
    I've never been more blown away by a hardware review. Never have I seen a gpu beat another gpu at just over half the cost.
  • 11 Hide
    DarkForce_256 , October 23, 2013 9:45 PM
    So what's the deal with the 290?
  • 9 Hide
    shin0bi272 , October 23, 2013 9:51 PM
    it always tickles the hell out of me when an amd card ties or about ties an nvidia card in one game then in an nvidia physx game the amd kicks the crap out of the nvidia card... Of course if you know why that happens in metro you know its more of a fault of the coders not physx but its still funny.
  • 10 Hide
    jimmysmitty , October 23, 2013 9:58 PM
    $550 is not bad for the fact that it beats the 780 easily and even pressures the Titan.

    Most of the higher resolution gaming wins come from the larger memory bandwidth and of course more vs the 780.

    That's a good sign. Maybe NVidia will drop prices and push this to $400-$450 and I will pick one up when there is a Vapor-X version of course,
  • 2 Hide
    markbro89 , October 23, 2013 9:59 PM
    Where to buy?! Newegg still says coming soon D:
  • -7 Hide
    DarkForce_256 , October 23, 2013 10:03 PM
    So what's the deal with the 290?
  • 99 Hide
    BigMack70 , October 23, 2013 10:04 PM
    Thank goodness AMD had some sense with the pricing. Finally, at long last, Nvidia can stop raping consumers' wallets due to lack of competition.

    This is win-win-win for everyone (except maybe Nvidia).

    Hope we never have to deal with a $1000 single GPU fiasco again. Good riddance.
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