Sapphire Radeon R7 260X: A Great Linux Graphics Card

Now that we have an idea for the Sapphire Radeon R7 260X performance levels, let's look at the power usage and operating temperature for the graphics card. Via the Phoronix Test Suite it monitored the NVIDIA and AMD GPUs core temperature using the drivers' respective interfaces. For monitoring the power usage, a WattsUp USB-based power meter was connected on the AC end of the power supply and automatically polled via the Phoronix Test Suite. This testing was done automatically by setting the MONITOR=sys.power,gpu.temp environment variable for our benchmarking software and then setting the PERFORMANCE_PER_WATT=1 environment variable for also generating performance-per-Watt results.

First up is the torturing Furmark test where the Radeon R7 260X came in slightly behind the Radeon HD 7850 but well ahead of the competing GeForce GTX 650.

The average temperature for the Sapphire Radeon R7 260X was a reasonable 57.4 Celsius while running this OpenGL test that's known for maxing out graphics cards.

The overall AC system power consumption for this A10-7850K Kaveri system with R7 260X was 206 Watts.

With the performance-per-Watt, the Sapphire R7 260X came ahead of the Radeon HD 6870, HD 6950, and GTX 650 graphics cards. Delivering the best performance-per-Watt though was the more expensive R9 270X and GeForce GTX 760.