MSI GeForce GTX 760 Gaming OC 2GB Video Card Review in SLI and 2D Surround

Noise and Temps

Temperature & Noise Testing

Temperatures are important to enthusiasts and gamers, so we took a bit of time and did some temperature testing on the MSI GeForce GTX 760 Gaming OC 2GB video card

MSI GeForce GTX 760 Gaming OC 2GB Idle Temperature:

The MSI GeForce GTX 770 WindForce 3X 2GB video card had an idle temperature of 22C to 23C in a room that was 20C (70F) when used as a single card. When run in SLI we noticed that the outer card was running at 24C with the inner card running at 26C.

MSI GeForce GTX 760 Gaming OC 2GB Gaming Temperature:

When playing Far Cry 3 and Battlefield 3 for about 30 minutes each, we hit 61C with a single card and did not get any hotter than this as that. Notice the fan speed went from just 990RPM at idle to 1230RPM when gaming. You really can’t hear the card with it in your system at idle or when gaming. When run in 2-way SLI we found that the outer card was running at 59C with the inner card running at 79C. This is a massive 20C temperature difference due to the fact that the inner card is sucking air off the back of the other card. Oddly, the peak boost clock speed on the cooler card was about 14MHz lower for some reason.

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.

When it comes to noise levels the MSI GeForce GTX 760 Gaming OC 2GB card was the quietest that we have tested in recent months thanks to the low idle fan speed of just 990RPM. At full load we were jumped up from ~41dB to ~44dB, which isn’t bad at all considering the old NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 reference design was at ~54dB! This card is damn near silent! When running 2-way SLI the idle noise level was 42.1dB and the load was 44.7dB, so running two cards is a bit louder than one.