A Graphics Solution For Around £1000: Sapphire 295X2’s

Noise, Power Consumption and Temperatures

Noise

The noise levels produced by a graphics card is an increasingly important consideration for PC users and Gamers these days. While fan noise is unlikely to ruin the gaming experience, no one likes a noisy graphics card and no one will argue with the fact that quieter is better. Many users are willing to sacrifice temperatures to gain a silence advantage, but with better cooling solutions being developed it is increasingly common to be able to get both better cooling and better acoustic performance than a reference solution on most custom cooled graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD partners. That said both AMD and Nvidia have stepped up their game too with regards to acoustics on their reference coolers. Ultimately, acoustics will always be a big deciding factor when there is often very little differentiation between graphics cards using the same GPUs. To acquire the noise levels of graphics cards in our benchmarks we run three different load scenarios for 5 minutes and take an acoustic reading using our decibel meter at the end of those load scenarios. The measurement is taken approximately 30cm horizontally away from the graphics card and the CPU fans are disabled and other background noise minimised to reduce interference. The two testing scenarios are desktop idle and Unigine Heaven load. The reading in Unigine Heaven is always taken in the first scene of the sequence after one loop is completed.

Not the quietest, but then what do you expect from two 120mm fans and two 90mm fans trying to keep these behemoths cool. I’d say 59 decibels is very respectable.

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.

Yeah, I’ll leave you with that. ALMOST 1200w. This graphics set up has been known to fry Power Supplies, good brand units too. Luckily Our BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 1200W held up to the task.

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.

Yup, that factory water-cooling unit really does the job keeping these cool. A mere 56°c during Heaven benchmark, rather chilly compared to the R9 290’s.