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Recently 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 Sapphire card is a quiet card when gaming (hovering around 35 dBa), although Furmark pushes the fan speed to around 67% which generates 38.7 dBa. Still very acceptable results for a performance video card. This is around 5dBa-6dBa quieter than the reference card.
That is one seriously awesome mid range board. Sapphire do it again !
Great work man, covered all the bases. amazing temps, my 5770 runs hotter.
This is a damn good indication of why sapphire are still the leaders for AMD products.
My friend just read this review and wants the card. waiting patiently in the UK for it now 😉
excellent, the price is very good, although the 6950 isn’t much more really…..
That fan is a very unusual design, is it tapered at the edges? most fans at this size have 9 blades. very clever.
Very nice indeed and im not sure what the guy earlier was smoking, the HD6950 is £240 in the UK, thats £30-35 more. quite significant in this sector.
Nice one, any ideas when the USA gets this baby?
Where can you get the trixx tool? I dont see it online anywhere. does it work with any card?
Im impressed and thats hard to do now with the over saturation of cards on the market from so many companies. This stands out enough to get major sales for sapphire.
I dont like AMD hardware, but the temperatures on this card are incredible, very impressive engineering from Sapphire.
fucking hell, thats a crazy core clock speed.
great review again. do you ever sleep?
Excellent, would like to see this head to head with 560.
I bought sapphire 6870 last year because I couldn’t wait for the toxic edition. The temp for furmark was 89C in just 1minute not to mention how loud the fan was. So I bought the AC TTP, now peak at 63C for 15mins, I’m very happy.
@Ethan: Running cards around 90 is not always a problem, as we’ve seen from the GTX480. But it is always a pain when the cooling solution is screaming at you 🙁 Glad you found a better solution! Just out of interest, when you bought it, how much was the AC TTP ?
I checked ur original HD6870 review, and it seems that despite being 70Mhz higher clocked, this TOXIC edition card consumes only 3W higher than reference card. This is nothing short of amazing.
Considering you are getting higher than HD5870 performance by a 250$ card whereas only last year HD5870 was selling for 400$