I bought this version of the R9 290 because it was inexpensive compared with other custom R9 290’s and looked like it had a good lump of a cooler on it.
This is also not my first Powercolor GPU, its actually my third, the first was 10 years ago, an ATI 9### series, the last was a PCS+ 7870 MYST which I was impressed with.
Although the cooler wasn’t much good it could still hold the card in good temperatures even while very overclocked, the GPU its self was also very solid and reliable.
So onto the card. It came in a nice black box with the PCS+ cut out on the top for the raised logo on the plastic lid underneath to poke through,
inside that card was well packed in rubber foam, accessories were scant with a DP to HDMI adapter only.
The card is a very big 2.5 Slot monster, it weighs 1KG (2.2lb)
Quality
It has a Grey Textured full Metal Shroud and a thick Black Brushed Alloy Back Plate screwed to the PCB, it also has cut-outs and the logo printed on it,
the PCB, what you can see of it is Matt Black.
The card has a nice look and a good quality solid feel. I Have a gallery of it on Post #2
Cooling
There are three 92mm fans sitting over a very big Heatsink that fills the huge shroud, the cooling solution on this card looks like it means business.
An hour of Crysis 3 with the GPU running at 99% all the time results in 67c on an automatic fan profile, about 55% at that temperature,
its audible but not load, it’s also an acceptable sort of noise, if that makes sense.
The GPU
It’s Factory overclocked to 1040Mhz on the core and 1350Mhz on the vRam.
It has 2560 Stream Processors, 64 ROP’s, a 512Bit Bus, 4GB of vRam, and what you can’t see in GPU-Z; 8 ACE Units.
Gaming Performance
BF4 Shanghai: Ultra @ 1080P (Mantle API)
Min - Max - Avg
68 - 116 - 94.085
BF4 Shanghai: Ultra @ 1080P
Min - Max - Avg
48 - 97 - 65.158
Dirt Showdown: Ultra + Global illumination + 8x MSAA @ 1080P
Min - Avg
70 - 90
Sniper Elite V2: Maximum Settings @ 1080P
40.9 FPS
Tomb Raider: Ultra + TressFX + 2x SMAA @ 1080P
60.0 FPS
Synthetics
3DMark FireStrike
GPU Score
10227
Heaven 4: Maximum Settings @ 1080P
1277 Points
Compute Performance
LuxMark v 2.0
Sala: 2713
Room: 1409
LucBall HDR: 19824
AMD Mantle
Mantle is the only Low level API currently in existence; its purpose is to reduce the CPU Bottleneck when compared with DirectX,
the result of that is you get much better performance, especially with the Minimum FPS and if you have a weaker CPU,
it’s not so much effective if you’re running an i7 3960K or 4960X, but then how many of us do?
More on Mantle here
Mantle Benchmark results
BF4 Shanghai: Ultra @ 1080P
BF4: CPU Bound Latency, Low Preset.
Star Swarm: Follow, Extreme @ 1080P
Coil Whine
That annoying noise that can put you off your Game.
The good news here is Powercolor have very thoughtfully put Glue around the coils in a bid to stop the noise, and it has worked on my card, there is no noise at all from the coils.
I think that’s a nice touch and speaks volumes about their quality control.
Overclocking
The R9 290 comes with reference clock of 947Mhz Core and 1250Mhz Memory
The PCS+ R9 290 is 1040 / 1350 out of the box, on stock volts I managed to get it to 1125 / 1450, giving it a total 19% overclock on the core and 16% on the Memory, stable with no artefacts.
Conclusion
I think it’s a very good quality Card, its very well made, they have gone to extra lengths to make sure it has no coil whine, it looks good and it has excellent cooling.
This is also not my first Powercolor GPU, its actually my third, the first was 10 years ago, an ATI 9### series, the last was a PCS+ 7870 MYST which I was impressed with.
Although the cooler wasn’t much good it could still hold the card in good temperatures even while very overclocked, the GPU its self was also very solid and reliable.
So onto the card. It came in a nice black box with the PCS+ cut out on the top for the raised logo on the plastic lid underneath to poke through,
inside that card was well packed in rubber foam, accessories were scant with a DP to HDMI adapter only.
The card is a very big 2.5 Slot monster, it weighs 1KG (2.2lb)
Quality
It has a Grey Textured full Metal Shroud and a thick Black Brushed Alloy Back Plate screwed to the PCB, it also has cut-outs and the logo printed on it,
the PCB, what you can see of it is Matt Black.
The card has a nice look and a good quality solid feel. I Have a gallery of it on Post #2
Cooling
There are three 92mm fans sitting over a very big Heatsink that fills the huge shroud, the cooling solution on this card looks like it means business.
An hour of Crysis 3 with the GPU running at 99% all the time results in 67c on an automatic fan profile, about 55% at that temperature,
its audible but not load, it’s also an acceptable sort of noise, if that makes sense.
The GPU
It’s Factory overclocked to 1040Mhz on the core and 1350Mhz on the vRam.
It has 2560 Stream Processors, 64 ROP’s, a 512Bit Bus, 4GB of vRam, and what you can’t see in GPU-Z; 8 ACE Units.
Gaming Performance
BF4 Shanghai: Ultra @ 1080P (Mantle API)
Min - Max - Avg
68 - 116 - 94.085
BF4 Shanghai: Ultra @ 1080P
Min - Max - Avg
48 - 97 - 65.158
Dirt Showdown: Ultra + Global illumination + 8x MSAA @ 1080P
Min - Avg
70 - 90
Sniper Elite V2: Maximum Settings @ 1080P
40.9 FPS
Tomb Raider: Ultra + TressFX + 2x SMAA @ 1080P
60.0 FPS
Synthetics
3DMark FireStrike
GPU Score
10227
Heaven 4: Maximum Settings @ 1080P
1277 Points
Compute Performance
LuxMark v 2.0
Sala: 2713
Room: 1409
LucBall HDR: 19824
AMD Mantle
Mantle is the only Low level API currently in existence; its purpose is to reduce the CPU Bottleneck when compared with DirectX,
the result of that is you get much better performance, especially with the Minimum FPS and if you have a weaker CPU,
it’s not so much effective if you’re running an i7 3960K or 4960X, but then how many of us do?
More on Mantle here
Mantle Benchmark results
BF4 Shanghai: Ultra @ 1080P
BF4: CPU Bound Latency, Low Preset.
Star Swarm: Follow, Extreme @ 1080P
Coil Whine
That annoying noise that can put you off your Game.
The good news here is Powercolor have very thoughtfully put Glue around the coils in a bid to stop the noise, and it has worked on my card, there is no noise at all from the coils.
I think that’s a nice touch and speaks volumes about their quality control.
Overclocking
The R9 290 comes with reference clock of 947Mhz Core and 1250Mhz Memory
The PCS+ R9 290 is 1040 / 1350 out of the box, on stock volts I managed to get it to 1125 / 1450, giving it a total 19% overclock on the core and 16% on the Memory, stable with no artefacts.
Conclusion
I think it’s a very good quality Card, its very well made, they have gone to extra lengths to make sure it has no coil whine, it looks good and it has excellent cooling.
Last edited:
Scouse 
