Sapphire Nitro R9 390 8GB & Nitro R9 380 4GB Video Card Review
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Power Consumption
To test the power consumption of the Sapphire Dual-X R9 280 OC, the test system was plugged into a P3 Kill-A-Watt power meter. To achieve idle conditions the system was allowed to sit at the desktop for 30 minutes with no software running. For the load conditions, Crysis 3 was played for 30 minutes at 2560×1440 resolution. In both cases, the peak power reading was recorded.
Power Consumption Results: Between the R9 280 and the Nitro 380, there is around 60W difference when under a load. The difference between the R9 290 and Nitro 390 though was reversed, the Nitro 390’s power usage went up around 17W. This leads me to wonder if something wasn’t right with the card, especially if you take into account the noise level from the fans.