RX 7700 XT Revisit – ft. Gigabyte, PowerColor & Sapphire

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.

Noise-normalised thermals is where we finally start to see some differences between the models tested. Here, we increase fan speed until noise hits 40dBa, and then re-test thermal performance. Just a note, this doesn't take power into account – so cards that have higher power limits will typically run a little hotter, but it gives us a good idea about the relative efficiency of each cooler.

As we can see, the Hellhound delivers the best thermals, and to be honest I was expecting this after testing the excellent 7900 GRE and 7800 XT models. Next comes the Gigabyte Gaming OC, though it's only slightly ahead of the Sapphire Pure. The Pulse is running the hottest, which we would expect considering it's the only dual-fan model, but even then it is still doing fine.

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