Thermal Performance

To thermally test the cards we recorded GPU temperatures for each individual core using RivaTuner. Idle readings were taken at the desktop in Windows Vista 64-bit Home Premium with Windows Aero enabled, while the load reading taken while the GPU configuration was running our Crysis benchmark at 1,920 x 1,200 with 0xAA.

This is one of the most demanding tests in our benchmarking suite, and is sure to get those GPUs sweating. We didn't go higher because we felt that if we increased the load too much, some of the slower cards wouldn't deliver realistic numbers because they'd be bottlenecked in other ways.

All temperatures were taken with the cards cooled using only their standard stock coolers and running on our open air test benches, which have no additional airflow other than that present in the room.



With the custom cooling solution we’d hoped for a big improvement in thermal performance, but we're left a little underwhelmed. Idle temperatures were degrees below those the Nvidia’s stock cooler and load temperatures, while better, were only 6°C cooler than those of the stock dual-slot cooler, but it still hit upwards of 80ºC.

The big difference here though was that the stock Nvidia had to spin up it’s fans to 55 percent to keep the card at 90°C, becoming clearly audible in the process. The Palit GeForce GTX 275’s cooling fans on the other hand remained at a whisper quiet 30 percent (1,200RPM) throughout our testing, never reaching the 90°C mark at which the card’s firmware increases fan RPMs.