Powercolor R9 290X PCS+ 4GB Graphics Card Review

Final Thoughts

Updated March 22nd with revised pricing.

Pricing

Powercolor’s R9 290X PCS+ graphics card is currently retailing for $579.99 in the USA at Newegg. In the UK it is currently fetching around £449.99 while in Europe €515 is currently the going rate. Powercolor provide a 2 year warranty and at some retailers this graphics card is eligible for a complimentary copy of Battlefield 4.

Overview 

Powercolor’s R9 290X PCS+ graphics card is pretty darn faultless as far as R9 290Xs go and considering the “going rate” for an R9 290X (even a reference one) is still around $599.99 less than that for cool and quiet operation seems like a no-brainer. As the results showed this card has it all – it runs very quiet and very cool using the Quiet mode, under Uber mode it is loud but it does offer stellar temperatures in the mid 60s! That’s a staggering 30 degree reduction over the reference design and with similar noise levels. Of course most advanced users will just end up creating their own fan profile that best suits their individual needs. Either way this card has a tonne of cooling power and the ability to still remain quiet which is excellent. Next we find that this card performs very well – in fact it actually manages to sneak past the stock/reference GTX 780 Ti which is impressive in itself. This is mainly due to Powercolor’s decision to overclock both the GPU and the VRAM. Finally we have overclocking where this card once again delivered very well. Having read several other reviews, along with my own experiences, I can safely imply Powercolor’s PCS+ R9 290X is one of the better overclocking cards out there both for the GPU core and especially for the VRAM.

I could go on and on but I don’t think there is much else left to say. The Powercolor PCS+ R9 290X is an R9 290X done extremely well. Compared to Gigabyte’s offering (the only other non-reference design I’ve tested) the Powercolor card offers better cooling, better performance and less noise, but is a bigger overall card so is more difficult to CrossFire or fit into smaller cases. As things stand the Powercolor R9 290X PCS+ is also a cheaper solution than Gigabyte’s offering so Powercolor have done a very good job.

Pros

• Amazing cooling in Uber or Quiet
• Truly a quiet R9 290X experience with Quiet Mode
• Memory and Core overclock
• Excellent performance
• Backplate
• Excellent value for money relative to MSRP

Cons

• Only a 2 year warranty
• Larger than dual slot
• Blue thermal pads stand out in a bad way

“As far as non-reference R9 290X graphics cards go the Powercolor PCS+ variant is an all-rounder – a truly superb creation. Powercolor’s monstrous cooling solution makes the R9 290X stay at temperatures that I personally never thought I’d see without water cooling. Mix that with quiet operation, great performance and solid overclocking potential and there really is no reason to look any further than the Powercolor R9 290X PCS+ for the ultimate R9 290X.“

Thank you to Powercolor for providing this review sample.