AMD Radeon HD 7970 review - Graphics card temperatures

Graphics card temperatures

So here we'll have a look at GPU temperatures. First up, IDLE (desktop) temperatures.

IDLE temperatures are always a tiny bit tricky to read out as Windows Aero could have an effect on this. Overall anything below 50 Degrees C is considered okay, anything below 40 Degrees C is very nice. We threw in some cards at random that we have recently tested in the above chart.

But what happens when we are gaming? We fire off an intense game-like application at the graphics card and measure the highest temperature of the GPU. 

So with the card fully stressed we kept monitoring temperatures and noted down the GPU temperature.

• The temperature under heavy game stress for the card load stabilized at roughly 78 Degrees C. We note down the hottest GPU reading, not the average.

With today's graphics cards, please make sure your PC is well ventilated at all times, this will seriously help you on the overall GPU temperatures.