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 colouring the results and see what fans fit within your personal comfort level. Of course, we will endeavour 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 7 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.
While the stock NIVIDIA cooler may not exactly be as aggressive looking as some custom cooling solutions it does get the job done. Just as importantly not only does it keep the fully enabled GK110 core running at a rather reasonable temperature levels it does so without being as loud as a vacuum cleaner. In fact, it is rather mild compared to some previous generation designs and certainly puts AMD’s stock cooler to shame.
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 varaiences 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.
Even with a full 25% more cores, the PNY GeForce GTX 780Ti XLR8 is not what we would call a power hog by any stretch of the imagination. Simply put, in return for approximately 40 watt increase in power consumption consumers get to take advantage of all that extra horsepower. That is a trade-off many – including ourselves – would be more than willing to make. This goes double when you consider that while idling the differences between a stock 780, a GTX Titan and the PNY GeForce GTX 780Ti XLR8 is only a couple watts and certainly not enough to worry about.
