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.



The Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 1GB Toxic's idle temperature doesn't drop that much compared to the stock cooler, but what we have to bear in mind here is the fact that the fan on Sapphire's custom Vapor-X cooler is running at just 600 RPM - any slower and it may as well not be spinning. It's as close to silent as you're going to get without using a passive cooling solution.

At load, we found that the fan spun up to 1,400 RPM and at this fan speed, it was barely audible but still very quiet. At load, we found that Sapphire's custom cooler dropped the temperatures by around 11 degrees, which isn't too shabby for something that remains incredibly quiet, regardless of how much stress the card is under.

The stock cooler isn't exactly noisy at load, but it's definitely audible. Moreover, when the stock Radeon HD 4870 1GB is idling, the stock cooler is still louder than this card is when it's fully loaded. Whether or not you'll find your PC is quieter with the Vapor-X cooler on your graphics card is debatable - it'll depend how noisy other components are in your system because both are fairly quiet.