Power Consumption
Unfortunately, AMD didn’t send reference R9 280X cards to either our U.S. or German offices. Instead, we have a number of board partner designs running at different clock rates and with varying cooling solutions. We’re getting as close as possible to the reference specs, but be advised that the power consumption values might not match the model coming straight from AMD.
Here’s the thing, though: when you compare the new cards’ power consumption to their predecessors, you notice that there’s hardly any difference at all. Some of the newer boards technically enjoy higher peak clock rates, though this contributes little to the power story, as our test cases don’t allow for sustained operation at those frequencies.
Let's take a closer look at this situation and the resulting power consumption of these graphics cards:
