PowerColor PCS+ AXR9 390X 8GB Video Card Review

By Nathan Kirsch June 26, 2015

Temperature & Noise Testing

Temperatures are important to enthusiasts and gamers, so we took a bit of time and did some temperature testing on the PowerColor PCS+ AXR9 390X 8GB.

PowerColor PCS+ AXR9 390X 8GB Idle Temps:

At idle we found the GPU core temperature was 53C with no fans spinning thanks to PowerColor Mute Fan Technology. GPU-Z reported that the fan speed at 20% (1060RPM), but this is actually wrong as they weren’t spinning. The VRM temps in an idle state without any fans running were 48-49C for both the VRM1 and VRM2 measurements.

PowerColor PCS+ AXR9 390X 8GB Gaming Load Temps

When gaming we hit 67C in a room with a temperature of 70F (21C) with three cooling fans topping out at 2965 RPM. The fans on the PowerColor PCS+ AXR9 390X are either not running or are running fast and loud! The VRM temperatures hit 71C on VRM1 and 64C on VRM2 when gaming for about an hour and maxing out the cards temperatures.

The PowerColor PCS+ AXR9 390X had the highest idle temperature of any high-end card that we have recently testing, but it’s also the only card in the group that has a 0dB fanless idle design. At full load the card is kept nice and cool thanks to the fans spinning at nearly 3,000 RPM and the temperature topped out at 67C. The AMD Radeon R9 290X reference card topped out at 94C, so we are very happy with 67C result!

Sound Testing

We test noise levels with an Extech sound level meter that has 1.5dB accuracy that meets Type 2 standards. This meter ranges from 35dB to 90dB on the low measurement range, which is perfect for us as our test room usually averages around 36dB. We measure the sound level two inches above the corner of the motherboard with ‘A’ frequency weighting. The microphone wind cover is used to make sure no wind is blowing across the microphone, which would seriously throw off the data.

The PowerColor PCS+ AXR9 390X 8GB video card had the lowest noise levels at idle since the cards fans weren’t running and then the highest noise level when the fans were running. This card is either dead silent or running full out!