Hi Condor,
According to that white paper I attached, that is the intended goal w\ AMD vid cards to maximize their GPU performance that have the PowerTune coding embedded in the GPU.
This is why I attached this white paper as most users have learned and been told that a GPU runs best when kept as cool as possible to minimize electrical leakage at the transistor level so power levels can be better controlled (meaning needing less power to achieve the same result) and also to show that this isn't just me saying this........it's AMD's engineering dept saying this, the one's who designed and built these products.
AMD engineers designed their GPU's to be a little different starting w\ the HD6000 series and up until recent & designed PowerTune to control this by using GPU power and GPU cooling to maximize GPU performance as close to the GPU's thermal design limits.
So AMD says the hotter the better their GPU's will perform when allowing AMD's PowerTune to optimally work....just make sure that the cooler on the card is up to the task. This is where you will want to be using an AIB AMD vid card instead of an AMD reference vid card as the AIB's will install MUCH better coolers on them to maintain the higher operating temp ranges to optimize the AMD GPU's.
The AMD R9 Fury series is the only series AMD reference vid cards that AMD has actually put a good cooling solution on them to allow their GPU's to optimize w\ PowerTune so they have learned their own lesson.
When used as is intended it does work and work well.......but it also takes some getting used to seeing GPU temps operating that high. A good, well ventilated case is almost a necessity when using an AMD vid card to it's strengths to help maintain the temps properly.
Hope this helps.
PS--How I set up my vid card's fan speed profile in MSI Afterburner looks like a L laid over on the long side. I set the 100% dot at 5*C below the GPU's TDP limit then set the other dot on the low fan speed % line at 15*C below the GPU TDP limit so the fan will not spin up off the lowest fan speed % set until the GPU operating temp crossed the 1st dot then the fan will ramp up proportionally to every 1*C GPU temp rise. An example using your card's GPU TDP:
30% fan speed until GPU temp crosses 80*C then fan speed will ramp proportionally until GPU temp hits 90*C at which time the fan speed should be at 100%. How good the vid card cooler\case air flow is will determine how close the GPU will get to the 100% fan speed of 90*C (I actually used this very same example w\ my XFX Radeon BE R9 290X vid card which has the same GPU TDP limit & leveled out in the 84*C-86*C temp range at full GPU load w\ fan speeds hovering between the 50%-70% range & it came very close to matching my GeForce GTX 780Ti in maximum performance in a delta of less than 5% between the 2 cards running the same game on the very same hardware that you see in my sig at the bottom of my posts).
I have a posting here on the BBS detailing all this testing if you want to read it. Just run a search in the H&S section..............
YMMV.
