Temperatures
The cooling solution which graphics card vendors use is one of the main differences that consumers have to contend with. Apart from their acoustic properties, the thermal properties of graphics card coolers are extremely important. Lower temperatures are always better and with AMD and Nvidia opting to use dynamic overclocking algorithms that take temperature into account it is important that graphics card vendors use high performance cooling solutions in order to maximise performance. The era of graphics cards reaching dangerous temperatures are now in the past but the importance of lower temperatures still remains. Lower temperatures mean better stability, longer component longevity and lower fan speeds. That said temperatures are one of the most important non-performance related properties on a graphics card.
Find details of our temperature methodology on page 3.
When I was reading your introduction I was a little surprised to see the blue PCB because the one we’ve just tested had a black PCB. I had no idea there were two revisions but you cleared that up quite nicely in the conclusion. Just goes to show I don’t jump to the closing thoughts first and ignore all your other hard work.
Super important thing to mention – Gigabyte has 2 revisions of the GTX760. REV1 witch is what we see here features the blue PCB with a 3 heatpipe cooling solution while REV2 features a Black PCB and a 2 heatpipe solution.