Temperature & noise

Mid range cards are normally based of the high end counterparts, with features cut and less transistors, thus resulting in cooler operating temperatures, this allows for passive cooling on some models. The cards tested today however all feature active cooling, single slot heatsinks with small fan embed inside, the fan is controlled by the driver, and speeds up/slows down as the GPU temperature changes. We test the load temps in a closed case (Coolermaster CM 690 with 1x120mm front and 1x120mm in rear), ambient temperature was 25°C, noise was measured at 50cm from the side of the case, ambient noise of 37.8dBA.



Real-time HDR was run for 30 minutes and maximum temperatures recorded at the video card stock speeds.



The passively cooled 8600 GT is the hottest, as expected, but at only 76°C it’s far from critical temperatures, just make sure you have some active case cooling present inside your case.

So the heatsinks do their job at keeping the GPU cool, even when overclocked, but how noisy are they? The dBA level at boot-up was recorded, when the fan is running at full speed, afterwards Real-Time HDR was used to stress the VGA card and after 30minutes the maximum dBA was written down and compiled in this chart:



Here’s where the Club 3D card really shines, without any active cooling on the card this card will not add ANY noise to your system, how noisy your system is depends on the other components in your PC. The Club 3D makes no noise. 0dBA.

Power consumption

With 1600W power supplies touted as the next best thing, it’s essential to know how much a system really needs, before you go spending your savings on a new PSU.



We measured maximum overall system load during 3DMark03 runs (where we found power usage to spike the highest in the Nature scene).



Overall these cards are quite power usage friendly, even at full load the system doesn’t use up more than 200W, and that’s measured at the wall outlet! The DDR2 chips on the Club 3D consume slightly more than the DDR3 chips on the Sparkle, but nothing to worry about.

Time to wrap things up ->