Power, Temperature and Noise
Shipping frequencies are right in line with Asus's card, so it's no surprise to find that power consumption is near-identical, too. Under load, our entire test platform draws just over 360 watts, which is admittedly a little higher than we'd like for a modern-day enthusiast card.
One of the biggest challenges facing custom R9 290X designs is in cooling AMD's hot-running GPU. PowerColor's giant cooler actually does really well. The underlying chip hits a respectable 76ºC when gaming on the quiet BIOS profile. Better still, switching to performance mode limited the under-load temperature to a very impressive 68ºC - the lowest we've seen on any R9 290X.
A choice of BIOS modes gives users better control over fan noise. We reckon most gamers will want to stick to the quiet profile, which strikes an agreeable balance between cooling and acoustic performance by limiting noise levels to around 40dB.
Fan speeds are kept below 50 per cent in the aforementioned scenario (<2,200rpm), but flip over to performance mode and the PCS+ becomes far more vocal. Sure, temperatures are lowered significantly, however the fans are quick to ramp up to 75 per cent (roughly 3,000rpm) and at that point the card's unmistakable bellow registered 48.6dB on our noise meter.
