XFX GeForce 7900 GS 480M Video Card Review

Temperatures

One thing that often goes overlooked when it comes to graphics cards is the temperature that they run at. Since this card is priced right around $200 it is sure to sell well, so we figured we would take a look at the temperatures.

With the deafult clock speeds we let the system idle and found the Core of the GeForce 7900GS to run right around 49C at idle.

When we ran a 3D application the graphics card warmed up a great deal and finally topped out at 78C with the stock cooling solution by XFX.

For those that want to go a little extreme, water cooling is a very efficient way to cool graphics cards and when the core on the 7900GS was cooled by water the temperature dropped significantly at idle and under load.

With the water block on the GPU the idle temperature dropped from 49C with the factory cooling solution to just 35C.

At full load the GeForce 7900GS reached 40C when before it was running 78C! By water cooling the core we were nearly able to cut the temperature level in half under load. The video card is by far one of the hottest pieces of hardware in a modern computer, so if you already have a water cooler we highly suggest water cooling the graphics card as it will lower the overall case temperature and allow for better overclocking.