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Sapphire HD6790 CrossfireX Review

We have changed our method of measuring noise levels. We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. We are using a heatpipe based passive power supply and an Intel SSD to keep noise levels to a minimum. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests. Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.

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 custom Sapphire cooler proves to be very quiet when idle and when gaming. It is audible inside a quiet system when under load, but the cooling solution is much better than the AMD reference design.

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12 comments

  1. Really good price for what you get, nice cooler too.

  2. Well let’s be honest, it wouldn’t take much to outperform the 550 ti

  3. Very nice card. Some very good work on AMD’s driver side.
    Image quality looks amazing for a card at this price and performance is on par with the price sector.
    It’s a shame that even with the much improved F@H Core 16 this card wont fold nearly as many PPD as a GTX550Ti. That kind of sours the whole deal to me.

    Stellar Review Zardon. Nice addition of the overall scoring on the conclusions page.

    Proud KitGuru Folder (Team 196420) and Gamer.
    Fisshy

  4. I really hate the way they change the naming conventions on these. why not call it the 6770 and be done with it?

    Otherwise its impressive for the price and fascinating to see the CFX results showing it often close between GTX570 and GTX580, for a fraction of the price.

  5. These are extremely impressive little boards, for the price I cant see it getting much better than this.

  6. I am very impressed with the performance results, I hear some of them will be 110 quid too, bargain really.

  7. That cooler is identical to the 5870 version, thats a nice way to do it. saves them development money on a new cooler too.

  8. The biggest problem is that 5830 has dropped in price, XFX are selling their 5830 XXX for 85 inc vat.

  9. How GTX550 Ti loss on Resident Evil 5?

    HD 6790 – Max FPS 72
    – Min FPS 57
    Average – 64,5

    GTX550 Ti – Max FPS 72
    – Min FPS 60
    Average – 66

    To me this is a victory by a green team… Well, the result yet remains in favor to red team, with 7 victory vs 5 victory.

    On games the battle is very difficult, 4 wins for each team. I was thinking, if is possible make this test in 1650×1050.

    After all, 1650×1050 is the better choice for both cards. 2560×1600 and 1920×1200/1080 is more High-end resolution.

    Maybe put more games DX11 e more titles. Just a idea. Anyway, good reviews! Thx for that.

  10. We don’t post maximum frame rate figures Guiherme. The 72 fps is the average figure, not the maximum.

    Thanks for the comments, glad you like the reviews.

  11. Hey guys, why would anyone buy a GTX 580 (AU~$500) when you can get two 6790’s and crossfire them for less than AU$300? Is there something I’m missing?

  12. ^^^
    because most users doesn’t have an XFire capable board to do this and some doesn’t want to Xfire at all.