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.
I had to ramp fan speed up to 46%, or 2160rpm, to hit 40dBa noise output for our noise-normalised thermal testing, at which point the Pulse saw a peak GPU temperature of 58C, and a hot spot of 75C. It's clearly a much more efficient cooler than AMD's reference card, reducing GPU thermals by 8C at the same noise levels.