Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB Graphics Card Review

Acoustic, Thermal and Power Testing

Acoustic Performance

The Zero RPM fan mode mean that this card, like many others on our charts, was able to run completely silent. The card runs silent, and when the temperatures hit 60c or above, the dual fans will spin up. However, even then it was remarkable quiet at just 41dBa. This makes it one of the quieter cards we’ve ever tested.

Thermal Performance

As you can see, the slightly smaller cooler does mean the card runs a bit warm. However, it’s well within safe limits. Of course, the card is quiet enough that I would be comfortable applying a slightly more aggressive fan curve to balance the acoustics and thermals a bit better, especially if you’re overclocking the card.

Power Usage

The 4xx series of cards weren’t exactly efficient, and the 5xx is a tuned up and overclocked version of that chipset, so the efficiency doesn’t look great. However, it’s not all terrible, although we won’t see improvements until AMD release a new chipset architecture.