High speed steels are mainly used for chipping, cold - work applications and precision blanking tools. In these applications the high-speed steels are exposed to high mechanical forces in combination with high temperature exposure. Therefore, their special properties are high hardness and hot hardness as well as excellent wear resistance. In addition to conventionally produced high-speed steels via ingot casting, there is also the possibility to produce them via the powder metallurgical route by gas atomization of melt and subsequent hot isostatic pressing. All the advantages of the powder metallurgical processing route, like the homogeneous carbide distribution and the absence of macrosegregation, are related to the high solidification rate of the small powder particles. The aim of this work was to establish if the mechanical properties are influenced by different powder fractions. Therefore, the powder of the commercialised Böhler high-speed steel S290PM was sieved to 7 different powder fractions. The mechanical response of the steels made of different powder fractions was then characterized with tensile tests, fracture toughness tests and hardness tests. Based on the obtained results correlations between the microstructure and the mechanical properties of the steels have been made.