Cooling performance

So here's where we can have a look at temperatures. As you can see, the end-results are just really good. Now you can do two things, install the cooler and leave things as is, cooling performance will be excellent. But you can also grab Rivatuner and force fan RPM to the maximum. Your card will remain nearly inaudible really, yet the cooling performance becomes even more grand.

Let's have a look that:

So that doesn't suck alright. First have a look at the lower results, that is an ATI reference Radeon HD 4870 X2 . As you can see with both GPUs under 100% load temperatures will rise towards 90 Degrees C / 194 F. We measured at a room temperature of 22 Degrees C by the way.

But let's say that 85-90 Degrees C is our baseline for the reference coolers, which is very realistic. Now with the new cooler mounted we see at default RPM (VBIOS regulated) we max out at 60 Degrees C (140F), that's already 30 Degrees C better instantly (middle results showing AC standard).

Now at this stage we measured 37 DBa sound pressure coming from the PC. But really .. that's the PC and background noise really as the cooler can not be heard. Marvelous.

We can however, pull a fast one on the cooler and go even further ...

Here's a trick, load up Rivatuner and force fan RPM towards 100%. With Rivatuner you can select the temperature delta completely. I just selected "Fixed" and start increasing the fan rotational speed (RPM) until I could very slightly hear it, with this cooler however just go for Fixed at 100%. At this stage the the fans still are barely audible, I mean really .. they are silent.

BTW don't forget to flag "Apply fan settings at Windows startup". This way your settings will always work when you boot up the PC.

At this stage the noise level still is only 39 DBa (slightly hearable but that's all). The GPUs at full load now are roughly 50 Degrees C (122 F), and that's roughly 40 Degrees C away from reference, quite amazing yet still very silent.

Example of a test session with 100% RPM - Rivatuner temperature monitoring during a stress test.