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 be 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 subjectivity 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 1500-watt UPS. This ensures only 120-volt power is supplied to the PSU and removes any variances that could potentially 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 10 desktop for 25 minutes and recorded the peak idle power consumption.
