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Power Consumption
Power Consumption at Different Loads
We measured about 283W during our gaming loop using the driver's Balanced power profile. That's about 3W more than AMD's reference model using its default BIOS. We're willing to accept the higher power consumption since PowerColor's performance is also better. Recent BIOS modifications, including an updated power table, seem to be working well. A 282W measurement in our stress test is also acceptable.
PowerColor's overclocked mode dials in a higher power limit, but doesn't affect the maximum clock rate by default. Even then, though, it exceeds the 320W mark. Worse, performance doesn't improve all that much. As a result, we decided not to get any more aggressive with our overclocking. Rather, we stuck with the driver's Balanced power profile for testing.
The corresponding voltages for our gaming workload and stress test at PowerColor's stock settings are plotted in the following graph:
Load On The Motherboard Slot
At a peak of 2.4A through our stress test, PowerColor's Red Devil RX Vega 64 falls significantly below the 5.5A ceiling defined by the PCI-SIG for a motherboard's 12V rail. A mere 2.3A during the gaming loop is even more conservative. Overall, balancing is well-implemented, and the motherboard slot hardly ever experiences serious loads.
Power Consumption In Detail
The graphs below plot detailed power consumption and current readings in order to illustrate our findings.
Naturally, peaks in power consumption are highest during gaming. But spikes of up to 360W are still acceptable, since they're far too brief to cause a problem.
The same goes for the corresponding current measurements:
In the BIOS' OC mode, we see power consumption explode compared to PowerColor's Standard configuration.
Of course, this applies to our current measurements, too.
During our stress test, the short-term peaks are significantly less pronounced (even if the power consumption is slightly higher than during gaming workloads).
Again, our current readings follow the graph rather closely and show no abnormalities.
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