AMD Radeon R9 270X & Sapphire TOXIC R9 270X Video Card Reviews
Temperature & Noise Testing
Temperatures are important to enthusiasts and gamers, so we took a bit of time and did some temperature testing on both Radeon R9 270X video cards
AMD Radeon R9 270X 2GB Video Card Idle Temperature:
Sapphire Toxic R9 270X 2GB Video Card Idle Temperature:
The AMD Radeon R9 270X had an idle temperature of 30.0C in a room that was 22.0C (72F) and the single fan was spinning ~1180 RPM. The Sapphire Toxic R9 270X 2GB was running at just 28C, but the fans were spinning faster at 1380RPM.
AMD Radeon R9 290X 2GB Gaming Temperature:
Sapphire Toxic R9 270X 2GB Gaming Temperature:
When playing Far Cry 3 and Battlefield 3 for about 30 minutes each, we hit 73C on the AMD Radeon R9 270X and 57C on the Sapphire Toxic R9 270X 2GB! The Sapphire Toxic R9 270X runs 16C cooler than the AMD reference card when gaming, which is very impressive. Seeing your GPU running in the 50’s at full load is something that is usually unheard of, so kudos to Sapphire for doing a great job with the new Tri-X GPU Cooler!
The Sapphire Toxic R9 270X is actually the coolest running card of any of the ones that we have tested in recent months! Very impressive! The AMD Radeon R9 270X reference card falls into the middle of the pack and is pretty average.
Sound Testing
We recently upgraded our sound meter to an Extech sound level meter with 1.5dB accuracy that meets Type 2 standards. This meter ranges from 35dB to 90dB on the low measurement range, which is perfect for us as our test room usually averages around 36dB. We measure the sound level two inches above the corner of the motherboard with ‘A’ frequency weighting. The microphone wind cover is used to make sure no wind is blowing across the microphone, which would seriously throw off the data.
The AMD Radeon R7 270X is a very quiet card at both idle and load, but the Sapphire Toxic R9 270X is pretty damn quiet as well. Neither of these cards will be heard over the other fans in your system when gaming, so everything is good when it comes to acoustics.