ASUS Radeon HD 7870 DirectCU II

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TEST METHODOLOGY

Our test procedure is an in-system test, designed to:

1. Determine whether the cooler is adequate for use in a low-noise system. By adequately cooled, we mean cooled well enough that no misbehavior related to thermal overload is exhibited. Thermal misbehavior in a graphics card can show up in a variety of ways, including:

• Sudden system shutdown, reboot without warning, or loss of display signal
• Jaggies and other visual artifacts on the screen.
• Motion slowing and/or screen freezing.

Any of these misbehaviors are annoying at best and dangerous at worst — dangerous to the health and lifespan of the graphics card, and sometimes to the system OS.

2. Estimate the card's power consumption. This is a good indicator of how efficient the card is, and it affects how hot the GPU runs. The lower the better.

3. Determine how well the card decodes high definition video.

Test Platform

• Intel Core i3-2100 processor, Sandy Bridge core, dual core 3.1 GHz, integrated HD 2000 graphics, TDP of 65W.
• Thermalright HR-02 Macho heatsink, an early design prototype with a Scythe Slip Stream 500RPM 120mm fan.
• Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H motherboard, Z77 chipset, ATX, PCI-E 3.0.
• Kingston HyperX Genesis memory, 2x4GB, DDR3-1600.
• Corsair Force GT solid state drive, 120GB, 2.5 inch, SATA 6 Gbps, refurbished.
• Kingwin Lazer Platinum power supply, ATX v2.2, 80 Plus Platinum, 1000W total output, 83A on +12V rail.
• Fractal Design Define R3 case, ATX, modified.
• Antec TrueQuiet 120 120mm fan, two connected to controllable motherboard headers, 1000 RPM, 3-pin.
• Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate operating system, 64-bit
• AMD Catalyst graphics driver for AMD/ATI based graphics card, version 12.8.
• NVIDIA GeForce graphics driver for NVIDIA based graphics cards, version 301.42.

GPUs Compared:

• AMD Radeon HD 5450 - 650 MHz, 512MB GDDR3 @ 900 MHz
• HIS Radeon HD 5550 Silence - 550 MHz, 512MB GDDR5 @ 1000 MHz
• AMD Radeon HD 5570 - 650 MHz, 1GB GDDR3 @ 900 MHz
• AMD Radeon HD 6570 - 650 MHz, 512MB GDDR5 @ 1000 MHz
• Sapphire Radeon HD 7750 Ultimate Edition - 800 MHz, 1GB GDDR5 @ 1125 MHz
• ASUS Radeon HD 6850 DirectCU - 790 MHz, 1GB GDDR5 @ 1000 MHz
• AMD Radeon HD 6870 - 790 MHz, 1GB GDDR5 @ 1050 MHz
• HIS Radeon HD 5870 iCooler V Turbo - 875 MHz, 1GB GDDR5 @ 1225 MHz
• ASUS Radeon HD 7870 DirectCU II - 1000 MHz, 2GB GDDR5 @ 1200 MHz
• ASUS GeForce GT 430 - 700 MHz, 1GB DDR3 @ 800 MHz
• Zotac GeForce GT 640 ZONE Edition 902 MHz, 2GB GDDR3 @ 891 MHz
• ASUS GeForce GTS 450 DirectCU - 783 MHz, 1GB GDDR5 @ 902 MHz
• Gainward GeForce GTX 560 Ti Phantom - 823 MHz, 2GB GDDR5 @ 1002 MHz
• ASUS GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II OC - 1020 MHz, 2GB GDDR5 @ 1502 MHz

Measurement and Analysis Tools

• Prime95 stability test to stress the CPU.
• FurMark stability test to stress the GPU.
• GPU-Z to monitor GPU temperatures and fan speeds.
• SpeedFan to monitor system temperatures and adjust fan speeds.
• MSI Afterburner to adjust GPU fan speeds.
• Cyberlink PowerDVD to play H.264/VC-1 video.
• Mozilla Firefox with Adobe Flash Player to play Flash video.
• Extech AC Power Analyzer 380803 AC power meter, used to measure the power consumption of the system.
• A custom-built variable fan speed controller to power third party cooler fans.
• PC-based spectrum analyzer — SpectraPlus with ACO Pacific mic and M-Audio digital audio interfaces.
• Anechoic chamber with ambient level of 11 dBA or lower.

3D Performance Benchmarks (for low-end/budget graphics processors only)

• 3DMark Vantage DirectX 10 benchmark.
• 3DMark11 DirectX 11 benchmark.
• Unigine Heaven 3.0 DirectX 11 benchmark.
• Lost Planet 2 standalone benchmark, Test "A".
• Aliens vs. Predator standalone benchmark.
• Crysis demo standalone benchmark.
• Sniper Elite V2 standalone benchmark.

Testing Procedures

Our first test involves monitoring the system power consumption as well as CPU and GPU temperatures during different states, idle, under load with Prime95 to stress the processor, and Prime95 plus FurMark to stress both the CPU and GPU simultaneously. This last state is an extremely stressful, worst case scenario test which generates more heat and higher power consumption than can be produced by a modern video game. If the card can survive this torture in our low airflow system, it should be able to function normally in the vast majority of PCs. Noise levels are measured and recorded as well; if we deem the card's fan control to be overly aggressive, we can adjust them at our discretion using various software tools.

Our second test procedure is to run the system through a video test suite featuring high definition clips played with PowerDVD and Mozilla Firefox (for Flash video). During playback, a CPU usage graph is created by the Windows Task Manger for analysis to determine the average CPU usage. High CPU usage is indicative of poor video decoding ability. If the video (and/or audio) skips or freezes, we conclude the GPU (in conjunction with the processor) is inadequate to decompress the clip properly.

Lastly, for low-end and budget graphics cards, we also run a few gaming benchmarks to get a general idea of the GPU's 3D performance. We don't feel this is necessary for high-end models as there are many websites that do this in painstaking detail.

GPU Cooler Testing

Heatsink testing requires only the Prime95 plus FurMark stress test to be used. The fan(s) (if applicable) are connected to a custom external fan controller and tested at various speeds to represent a good cross-section of its airflow and noise performance.

Our GPU cooler test card is an HIS Radeon HD 5870 iCooler V Turbo, a factory-overclocked single GPU card that draws about 236W by our estimates. The stock VRM heatsink is left on for convenience.

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