Cooling and Noise

In the past we have judged cooling performance and noise from in game performance to give a fair representation of what to expect during normal usage. Starting with this card we are going to change it up a little bit and include performance numbers from FurMark to show you what the absolute worst case scenario would be. Our graphs will include the FPS and Burn-In Score using the built in 1080p benchmark, but we will be focusing on the Temperature.

furmark OC

As you can see the Sapphire HD 7970 maxed out at 69 degreeā€™s a very impressive number considering it is a reference cooler. Of course in order for AMD to improve on the stock cooling they upgraded the fan, something that is noticeable in the noise levels. Speaking on the noise levels, there are two sides with the new HD 7970. At an idle load the fan literally stops spinning making the card dead silent. But when spooling up the new fan design puts out a distinctive sound. Testing on our test bench may show this problem more than in a proper case though.

image10

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Arxon's Avatar
Arxon replied the topic: #22116 10 Jan 2012 14:44
Dear god that thing is a BEAST!
Dreyvas's Avatar
Dreyvas replied the topic: #22118 10 Jan 2012 18:16
Was hoping to see some BF3 benchmarks, but looking awesome otherwise. :D
L0rdG1gabyt3's Avatar
L0rdG1gabyt3 replied the topic: #22119 10 Jan 2012 18:24
That is an amazing piece of hardware. Compared to the 580s which run $499, the amount of performance gain you get going to this card for just another $50 is really a great deal!

I hope to hear something from nVidia pretty soon on their Kepler cards.....
THUMPer's Avatar
THUMPer replied the topic: #22120 10 Jan 2012 18:56
hardocp.com/article/2012/01/09/amd_radeo...performance_review/5

They also OC great. Here are some BF3 benchies
lonewolf170's Avatar
lonewolf170 replied the topic: #22647 08 Feb 2012 08:46
ugh, seeing these all make me realize how behind I am with my crossfire 5750's...
Wingless92's Avatar
Wingless92 replied the topic: #22648 08 Feb 2012 08:48
Yea, those are getting long in the tooth. It all depends on what resolution that you play at. 1920x1200 and lower you don't need a "Monster" card to run games at. A 6870 would be just fine. Then again, it depends on what game that you're playing and how much eye candy you want on.
lonewolf170's Avatar
lonewolf170 replied the topic: #22649 08 Feb 2012 08:52

Wingless92 wrote: Yea, those are getting long in the tooth. It all depends on what resolution that you play at. 1920x1200 and lower you don't need a "Monster" card to run games at. A 6870 would be just fine. Then again, it depends on what game that you're playing and how much eye candy you want on.


Yea I haven't really played anything new recently. LoL, SC2, BF3 run fine so far. My last comp I ran into the ground. 4 years on a single Nvidia 9600...
garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #22650 08 Feb 2012 08:56
what resolution? BF3 on high settings can be demanding
lonewolf170's Avatar
lonewolf170 replied the topic: #22652 08 Feb 2012 09:12
1920 X 1080 on auto settings. Mostly on high though.

EDIT: I hardly play though. Got the game for $10 and haven't played since alpha... I'm lvl one still...

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