Power Draw: Detailed Test Results
Power Draw at Idle
Without enabling AMD’s Zero Core power-saving mode, the card dissipates 15.4 W at (almost) idle as it drives a monitor at 60 Hz. We'd like to see lower numbers, though that's still an acceptable result for such a high-end card. Despite the 16 GB of fast GDDR5 memory, the on-board RAM only draws 1 W at idle.
Maximum Power Draw: 3D (OpenGL)
Peaking at 245 W, the FirePro W9100 draws slightly less than the 250 W TDP of AMD's top desktop cards. Approximately 51 W of that comes from the motherboard, while the balance of 194 W is supplied by the auxiliary power cables.
Maximum Power Draw: Compute (OpenCL)
Even at a 100-percent workload, we couldn’t get the card up to its specified 275 W TDP. The pre-heated card bumps against its thermal limit before maxing out power consumption.