Temperature
To test max temps I ran Furmark’s burn-in test until the temperature plateaued for a while and then recorded the max. The fan was manually set to 100% for this test. The idle temperature was measured by leaving the computer at the desktop for about 15 minutes with the gpu fan at the lowest setting, 25%.
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Max temp at 100% fan speed – 69 degreees
Idle temp at 25% fan speed – 38 degrees
A max of 69 Celcius is very cool for a high end graphics card. And keep in mind that this is at absolute 100% gpu load, temps will most likely be much lower when gaming.
Overall, the new dual fan cooler Sapphire employed on the DiRT 3 6950 seems to drastically reduce gpu temps from the reference design by about 10 degrees at load and 3-4 at idle.
Noise
This test was conducted in a virtually silent room (air conditioning off, no fans on, ect.) that I had been sitting in for about 30 minutes to sharpen my hearing. Keep in mind that any sort of ambient noise greatly reduces how loud the card sounds.
The noise test was very simple. I just listened to the fan loudness and pitch while increasing the speed until 100%.
- 25% – Inaudible. The sound of the other fans in the case are louder.
- 40% – Audible. I can hear the fan but it is quiet. It is just a low hum at this point.
- 50% – Very Audible. I can very clearly hear the gpu fan over the case fans.
- 75% – Much louder than 50%. I wouldn’t want to have it at this speed all the time.
- 100% – Only a little louder than 75% and pitch is only marginally higher. Can easily be droned out with music playing though headphones.
At no point did the fan noise become annoyingly loud such as with most blower style fans, though I wouldn’t want to have it at 100% while I was trying to sleep.
Sapphire’s improved cooler seems to have not only greatly reduced gpu temperature, but also fan noise.
