AMD Radeon R7 260X, R9 270X, and R9 280X Tested

Name: Tested and Reviewed: AMD Radeon R7 260X, Radeon R9 270X, and Radeon R9 280X
Brand: Tested

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, October 08, 2013, 12:01 AM EDT

Before bringing this article to a close, we'd like to cover a few final data points--namely, power consumption, temperatures, and noise. Throughout all of our benchmarking and testing, we monitored acoustics and tracked how much power our test system was consuming using a power meter. Our goal was to give you an idea of how much power each configuration used while idling and also while under a heavy workload. Please keep in mind that we were testing total system power consumption at the outlet here, not just the power being drawn by the graphics cards alone.

Total System Power Consumption

Tested at the Outlet

Under both idle and load conditions, the new Radeon R9 and R7 series cards all consumed somewhat less power than their closest Radeon HD 7000-series based counterparts, though the differences weren't dramatic. Considering how similar the cards are, it should come as no surprise that power consumption is similar as well.

The noise output from the new Radeon R9 and R7 series cards, however, is a different story. All three of the cards we tested were clearly quieter than the previous generation. The XFX Radeon R9 280X we tested was much quieter than the reference Radeon HD 7970, and the R9 270X and R7 260X were quieter than 7870 and 7790, respectively, as well.

Tags: AMD, Radeon, Gaming, graphics, GPU, R9, R7, 270X, 280X, 260X

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com