Overclockers Club published a review on the Powercolor R9 290X OC
A quote from the article:
Cooling the card down is a large cooling solution that at times seems less than adequate, especially when running in Quiet mode. Temperatures quickly skyrocket to 94 °C on this card before clock speeds start dropping. This is particularly troubling when you run this card in a sealed case. You get some thermal dump into the case, which hopefully is well ventilated with more than just a pair of low CFM fans, or your gaming bliss could be short lived. While AMD states 95 °C is OK, I found out otherwise as this card would decide enough was enough and shut down at random times in games, which is a concern that needs to be addressed. Usually after the thermal limits had been reached and had been running under load for any time with a fan speed of less than 55%. Again not a PowerColor problem, but something I am wondering is indicative of the higher operating temperatures on the reference design. I hope that the non-reference designs from AMD's board partners remedy the cooling concerns to maintain the thermal headroom needed for optimum performance, because currently it's quite clear that NVIDIA cards run cooler and quieter than this current flagship from AMD.Powercolor R9 290X OC Review @ OCC