Cooling, Power, and Noise
So we have taken a look at the Dual-X cooling design but really what is important is how it performs right? Let’s take a look at the numbers and see where it falls. First up is its actual cooling performance. It’s interesting to see how it compares to the other HD 7790’s that we have tested. When under load it comes in a little warmer than the XFX dual fan cooler but the Gigabyte also out performs with its single large fan as well. It does outperform the Diamond though. I was expecting a little better but the Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X isn’t at the bottom of the pack as well.
With two fans I wouldn’t expect the noise to outperform the single fan designs but to be sure I put the Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X through our standard noise tests. At idle the noise level was higher than any of the other cards tested, but we are only talking about small differences from card to card. Under load the Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X comes in the middle of the pack but it is the noisiest HD 7790 tested by two decibels.
As for power usage the Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X at idle comes in slightly higher than the other HD 7790’s. I suspect this is related to the noise level as well, if the fans are running at a little higher speed it is going to pull a little more wattage. Under load though the Dual-X was on par with the Diamond card and less than the Gigabyte and XFX cards, not bad at all!