ASUS ARES II Video Card Review

Temperature & Noise Testing

Temperatures are important to enthusiasts and gamers, so we took a bit of time and did some temperature testing on the ASUS ARES II video card with the hybrid cooler!

ASUS ARES2-6GD5 Idle:

The ASUS ARES II 6GB video card had an idle temperature of 30.0C in a room that was 22.0C (72F). It should be noted that the radiator was setup in a push/pull configuration for these test results. With just one fan on the radiator the idle temperature was observed at 33C, so installing the second fan that comes with the ASUS ARES II is certainly worth it.

ASUS ARES2-6GDB in Furmark:

With Furmark fired up and running at 1024×768 we saw the temperature reach 62C on one core and 64C on the other after things warmed up and leveled off with the use of two fans on the radiator. When just one cooling fan is used on the radiator the GPU temperature was observed at 70C and 72C. The fan noise was also significantly louder due to the higher temperatures, so using two fans really does help cooling.

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 ASUSARES II was tested with dual fans and was found to be slighter louder at idle, which makes sense as three fans are spinning versus just one on the GeForce GTX 690. At load the water cooling solution on the ASUS ARES II helped keep the temperatures at bay and the fans didn’t have to spin that fast. The end result is that the ASUS ARES II is significantly quieter than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 during gaming marathons!