Noise, Power Consumption and Temperatures
Noise
Everyone has their own reasonable noise level when it comes to comes to components in a computer. Some can handle all fans at 100% load to keep temperatures down, some want a completely silent computer.
NVIDIA, in the quest for silence you have produced the single quietest reference cooler I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with, a mere 49 decibel at full pelt, thumbs up in my book.
Power Consumption
With electricity becoming increasingly expensive across most parts of the world the need for computer components to become power efficient has never been more relevant. Graphics cards are often the most power-hungry components inside a desktop system so having an efficient graphics card is very important to keeping power bills under control. Power is often correlated to heat and so lower power consumption means a graphics card is likely to run slightly cooler and put out less heat into your system meaning your other components will run cooler with improved longevity. AMD and Nvidia have both made power consumption an integral part of the way graphics cards dynamically overclock so the need for graphics card vendors to use efficient VRM and PCB designs is becoming important to maximise performance. We take power readings after 5 minutes of two different load scenarios: desktop idle and Unigine Heaven load.
When it comes to power consumption, NVIDIA normally delivers well below AMD’s offerings. We can see here again that this is the case. The only other cards beating it are the GTX 970 and GTX 980.
Temperatures
The cooling solution which graphics card vendors choose to implement is one of the main differences that consumers have to contend with when choosing a graphics cards. 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 .We take temperature readings after 5 minutes of two different load scenarios: desktop idle and Unigine Heaven load. We always record actual temperatures and make a note of the ambient; in the case where more than 1 GPU is used an average is created.
Now reference coolers are never the best and here we can see that again, 83c for a stock card isn’t the best place to be sitting during a benchmark or heavy gaming session.
Good, quite balanced review. I’ve always been an AMD guy, but with the advent of DX12 I’m wondering if it’s time to move over to the green side.
For the time being I’m on 295X2 in Crossfire, which is like having a small nuclear core in a computer case so anything that can improve on that is great!
I’ve had nothing but issues from AMD with my current rig. She started life as a FX + R9 270 build. Replaced the mobo and processor for an I7 4790k, Just need to go green with the card and thats a wrap.
ITs not the cards themselves, Just the drivers are awful. Once i finish saving for my 970 i’m kicking AMD to the curb and walking away forever.
A very good review. As expected, the 295×2 outperforms, but is also $500.00 more, and dual-gpu setup. I currently have a Titan Black and plan on skipping this generation and waiting for the next, but it’s good to see the progress in performance and where it will be in the near future. As far as the VRAM goes, the more the better. SoM already recommends 6gb for max texture settings, so that number will likely only increase from this point forward.