As the stress test begins the card remains in a passive cooling mode, and we see an immediate rise to 60 C before the fans on the card and radiator begin to spin up. After this initial spike, temps normalize to an apparent target of 50 C. I was already impressed by the ~63 C temps I observed from the Founders Edition card in a shorter test, but 50 C in a 20-minute sustained test like this is extremely impressive. And it did this at just 30% fan speed!
As to noise levels, I was not able to capture card noise accurately during the above thermal test due to the noise from the CPU cooler, but I did some controlled testing later with the CPU cooler fans disabled. Using Afterburner to manually set the fan speeds, and with my SPL meter positioned just 12 inches from the SUPRIM LIQUID SOC, equidistant between card and radiator, I noted the following:
- Idle (passive): 0 dBA
- 30% fans: (lowest default setting, as tested): 34.9 dBA
- 50% fans: 38.1 dBA
- 75% fans: 46.8 dBA
- 100% fans: 51.3 dBA
I don’t think even 50% fan speed would ever be necessary unless you are overclocking, as the card was exceptionally cool at just the lowest 30% default speed for both card and radiator. It was possible to hear the pump at this lower speed on the open test bed, but it was no louder than my usual CPU AiO pump and would be be mitigated by installation in a case.
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