Following on from our stock thermal and acoustic testing, here we re-test the operating temperature of the GPU, but with noise levels normalised to 40dBa. This allows us to measure the efficiency of the overall cooling solution as varying noise levels as a result of more aggressive fan curves are no longer a factor.
Given the fans only produced 37dBa noise, there is scope to reduce temperatures when noise-normalising to 40dBa. Here we include traditional GPU temperature as well as the Hot Spot temperature, a new addition which GPU-Z and HWInfo can access. For the Gaming OC, we increased fan speed to 77%, or 2220rpm, bringing temperatures down by 5C. This cooler is clearly more than a match for GA106.