Cooling, Noise, and Power

As I mentioned before, what really sets the PowerColor PCS+ R9 270X apart from other R9 270X’s is its PCS+ cooling. Because of that I was extremely excited to see how well its cooling performed in our cooling and noise testing. Before I get into that though let’s see how it performed in power testing. I ran the PCS+ R9 270X through Heaven Benchmark 4.0 and documented its peak load as well as a full idle load as well. At idle the PCS+ R9 270X fell right in between other R9 270X’s at 207 watts. The same happened with its load performance at 369 watts. You shouldn’t have to worry about what power supply you run with the PCS+ R9 270X.

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For noise levels, went through our normal idle and 100% fan speed testing to find that at idle the PCS+ R9 270X was noisier than most. Under full load though it was still quieter than the Sapphire card, but still above average compared to the other cards tested. Not included in this graph currently, I also ran through the same test at 50% fan speed as well. At 50% fan speed the PCS+ R9 270X made hardly any more noise than at idle (68 decibels) meaning it should actually be reasonably quiet in day to day use.

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As for cooling testing, the PCS+ cooling performed much better than any of the reference designed cards we have tested. But when compared to the other R9 270X’s that I have tested in the past, it fell slightly short. I suspect that the unique fan design isn’t pushing as much air as some of the other fans. The difference is only a few degrees, so I wouldn’t hold it against the PCS+ too much. But it is still something to keep in mind when picking out your card.

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