KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.
We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa.
Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
The R9 270X fan spins at around 1,110rpm when idle, and this increases to up to 2,500 rpm under full load. The single small fan generates a fairly high level of noise, measuring up to 36.7 dBa via our meter. It is clearly audible at full load. We will be testing some partner cards soon and we will expect these results to be significantly better.
So the only card with the new audio features is a budget model? what? The 270x is basically the same performance as a HD7870 Tahiti LE and 280X is a 7970ghz ed?
Anyone else wondering if AMD have anything new at all to release? 290x? come on. its going to be £600, no one can afford that!!@
@Ben Both companies have done the same in terms of “re-branding”, only the GTX 780 is a new card.
For this card, i am somewhat impressed how they have managed to beat a 7870 LE, whilst consuming a lot less power. Cooler is a bit of a let down, but i would never buy a reference card anyway, ASUS Direct CU all the way!
I have a HIS R9 270 (nonX) I was able to get a stable 1100mhz overclock, For some reason I can only use the HIS iTurbo program to overclock it, When I used Afterburner it cause driver crashes, When i use saphire Trix it caused a Red screen, LOL At first I was angry thinking I got a card that would not overclock well, But when I tried the HIS iTurbo software and +4 on powertune it worked like a charm, I ran Unigine Heaven 4 times just to make sure. I may try 1150mhz next, But I should not press my luck. I should be happy it clocks to and past 270X speeds and calm down. But not bad for a GPU I only paid $179 for.