Guru3D.com
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • Channels
    • Archive
    • Search
    • Submit
  • DOWNLOADS
    • New Downloads
    • Categories
    • Archive
    • Search
    • Submit
  • GAME REVIEWS
  • ARTICLES
    • Editorials
    • Guru3D VGA Charts
    • Rig of the Month
    • Join ROTM
    • PC Buyers Guide
    • Dated content
    • More Categories
  • HARDWARE REVIEWS
    • Videocards
    • Processors
    • Audio
    • Motherboards
    • Memory and Flash
    • SSD Storage
    • Chassis
    • Power Supply
    • Laptop and Mobile
    • Smartphone
    • Networking
    • Keyboard Mouse
    • Cooling
    • Knowledgebase
    • Search articles
    • More Categories
  • FORUMS
  • SEARCH
    • Search Articles
    • Search News
    • Search Files
  • NEWSLETTER
  • CONTACT

New Reviews
BitFenix Pandora Micro ATX chassis review
Cooler Master Nepton 240M review
Palit GeForce GTX 980 Super Jetstream review
Samsung 850 Pro SSD review
ASRock X99 OC Formula review
ASUS GeForce GTX 980 Strix review
MSI X99S XPower AC Motherboard Review
MSI GeForce GTX 980 Gaming OC review
GeForce GTX 980 2 and 3-way SLI review
Guru3D Rig of the Month - September 2014

New Downloads
3DMark Download v1.4.780
GPU-Z Download 0.8.0
GeForce 344.48 WHQL driver Download
HWiNFO64 4.46 Download
NVIDIA Inspector Download version 1.9.7.3
Sandra 2014 download SP3e
AIDA64 Download version 4.70
AMD Catalyst 14.9.1 BETA Download
Futuremark PCMark 8 download v2.2.282
Display Driver Uninstaller Download version 13.4.0.0


New Forum Topics
Sid Meier's Civilization Beyond Earth - Alpha Centauri sequel announced? Using other mobo's sound drivers? GTX 970 Owners Thread england has to give 1 billion to euro Metro LL 5760x1080 3x AOC I2360Vm's New games with season passes issue Assassin's Creed Unity PC specs released MSI afterburner bug report & suggestion GTX 970 bottleneck question. SBZ Switcher - Double click Speakers/Headphones mode switching available



Guru3D.com » Review » AMD Radeon R9-290X review » Page 10

AMD Radeon R9-290X review - Hardware Setup | Power Consumption

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 10/24/2013 05:50 AM [ 593 comment(s) 5 ]

Tweet

 

Hardware Installation

Installation of any of the AMD Radeon cards is really easy. Once the card is seated into the PC make sure you hook up the monitor and of course any external power connectors like 6 and/or 8-pin PEG power connectors. Preferably get yourself a power supply that has these PCIe PEG connectors native (converting them from a Molex Peripheral connector anno 2013 we feel is a no-go).

  • Download AMD Radeon drivers

Once done, we boot into Windows, install the latest AMD Catalyst drivers and after a reboot all should be working. No further configuration is required or needed unless you like to tweak the settings, for which you can open the Catalyst Control Center.

 

Power Consumption

Let's have a look at how much power draw we measure with this graphics card installed. The methodology: we have a device constantly monitoring the power draw from the PC. We simply stress the GPU, not the processor. The before and after wattage will tell us roughly how much power a graphics card is consuming under load. Our test system is based on a power hungry six-core Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition Sandy Bridge-E based setup on the X79 chipset platform. This setup is overclocked to 4.60 GHz on all cores. Next to that we have energy saving functions disabled for this motherboard and processor (to ensure consistent benchmark results). We'll be calculating the GPU power consumption here, not the total PC power consumption.

Power consumption AMD Radeon R9-290X

  1. System in IDLE = 120W
  2. System Wattage with GPU in FULL Stress = 396W
  3. Difference (GPU load) = 276W
  4. Add average IDLE wattage ~10W
  5. Subjective obtained GPU power consumption = ~ 286 Watts

Mind you that the system wattage is measured at the wall socket side and there are other variables like PSU power efficiency. So this is a calculated value not a precise measurement, albeit a very good one.

Above, we have a chart of relative power consumption. Again the Wattage shown is the card with the GPU(s) stressed 100%, showing only the peak GPU power draw, not the power consumption of the entire PC and not the average gaming power consumption either.

Power consumption  TDP in KWh KWh price 2 hrs day 4 hrs day
Graphics card measured TDP 0,286 0,23 0,13 0,26
         
Cost 5 days per week / 4 hrs day € 1,32      
Cost per Month € 5,70      
Cost per Year 5 days week / 4 hrs day / € € 68,41      
Cost per Year 5 days week / 4 hrs day / $ $ 90,30      

Here is Guru3D's power supply recommendation:

  • AMD R9-290X - On your average system the card requires you to have a 550~600 Watt power supply unit.
  • AMD R9-290X Crossfire - On your average system the cards require you to have a 800 Watt power supply unit as minimum.

If you are going to overclock GPU or processor, then we do recommend you purchase something with some more stamina. There are many good PSUs out there, please do have a look at our many PSU reviews as we have loads of recommended PSUs for you to check out in there. What would happen if your PSU can't cope with the load:

  • Bad 3D performance
  • Crashing games
  • Spontaneous reset or imminent shutdown of the PC
  • Freezing during gameplay
  • PSU overload can cause it to break down

Let's move to the next page where we'll look into GPU heat levels and noise levels coming from this graphics card.





32 pages « < 9 10 11 12 next »



Related Articles
AMD Radeon R9-285 review
In this review we look at the new AMD Radeon R9 285. Yes this is the new Tonga GPU based product that will drive the price from high-end gaming towards 249 USD while you can game with good image quality settings at WQHD - 2560x1440. Follow us into this review where we'll look at temperatures, noise, performance and go ...

AMD Radeon R7 Series 240GB SSD review
We review the AMD Radeon R7 series SSD. Based on an Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller the product comes with the latest iteration of Toshiba NAND flash memory. The end result is an SSD that is very fast ...

AMD Radeon R9-295x2 Review
Join us, as we review the Radeon R9-295 x2 with 8GB graphics memory. The Radeon R9-295 x2 is a dual-GPU based graphics card the comes with two Hawaii XT GPUs, these two GPU's are fully enabled on al...

AMD Radeon R7-265 Review
We review the AMD Radeon R7-265 today, the card is being injected into AMDs line-up of affordable graphics cards to be able to compete with NVIDIAs new 750 series. That means 1080P gaming will become...

© 2014