Video Card Temperature Results
For all temperature testing the cards were used in an open test bed environment. Ambient temperature was kept at a constant 20°C (+/- 0.5°C) and if the ambient room temperatures rose above 21°C or dropped below 19°C at any time, all benchmarking was stopped until proper temperatures could normalized.
For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Windows 7 desktop for 25 minutes and recorded the peak temperature.
For Load tests, we ran Unigine’s Valley benchmark for 20 minutes.
Sound Level Test Results
While everyone “hears” noise differently there is one easy way to remove all subjectivness and easily compare different fans: use a sound level meter. This way you can easily compare the various fans noise envelopes without us coloring the results and see what fans fit within your personal comfort level. Of course, we will endeavor to try and explain the various results – which are taken at a 15 inch distance from the GPU’s fan(s) – to help you gain an even better understanding of how loud a cooler’s stock fan is, but even if you discount our personal opinions, the fact remains numbers don’t lie.
For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Windows 10 desktop for 25 minutes and recorded the peak dB.
For Load tests, we ran Unigine’s Valley benchmark for 20 minutes and recorded the peak dB.
System Power Consumption
To obtain accurate results we have connected the system to a Power Angle power meter that has in turn been attached to a 1500watt UPS. This ensures only 120volt power is supplied to the PSU and removes an variances that could potential crop up because of brownouts and power spikes.
In order to stress the video card we have once again used Unigine’s Valley benchmark and ran it for 20 minutes to determine peak system power consumption. For idle results we have let the system idle at the Windows 7 desktop for 25 minutes and recorded the peak idle power consumption.
Obviously EVGA’s newer ICX cooling solution is more optimal than the older ACX design. Water is wet, the sky is blue and technology is always marching on. That is not the same as saying the EVGA GeForce GTX 1070Ti SC BE and its ACX cooler is bad. Its just that the newer ICX is so much better.
Compared to most 1070Ti class cards the EVGA GeForce GTX 1070Ti SC BE is pretty darn good. Not the best, but certainly above average. Use this negative perception to your advantage… and be on the look out for killer deals of this ‘little brother’ and let others spend more for the FTW2. The difference really is not going to be worth it to most people. Only those who really care about a silent video card solution will care – and should shell out the extra coin for the FTW2. Everyone else will still be either very satisfied or at least satisfied with the savings their new purchase netted them.
