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TEST METHODOLOGY
Our test procedure is an in-system test, designed to:
1. Determine whether the card's 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, blue-screen or reboot without warning.
- 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 life span 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 will have an effect on how hot the stock cooler becomes due
to power lost in the form of heat. The lower the better.
3. Determine the card's ability to play back high definition video, to see
if whether it is a suitable choice for a home theater PC.
Test Platform
Measurement and Analysis Tools
- CPUBurn
P6 processor stress software.
- ATITool
artifact scanner to stress the GPU.
- FurMark
stability test to stress the GPU.
- GPU-Z to
monitor GPU temperatures and fan speed.
- SpeedFan
to monitor CPU temperature.
- Seasonic
Power Angel AC power meter, used to measure the power consumption
of the system
- A custom-built variable fan speed controller to power the system
fan
- 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
Testing Procedures
Our first test involves recording the system power consumption using a Seasonic
Power Angel as well as CPU and GPU temperatures using SpeedFan and GPU-Z during
different states: Idle, under load with CPUBurn running to stress the processor,
and with CPUBurn and ATITool's artifact scanner (or FurMark — whichever produces
higher power consumption) running to stress both the CPU and GPU simultaneously.
This last state mimics the stress on the CPU and GPU produced by a modern video
game. The software is left running until the GPU temperature remains stable
for at least 10 minutes. If artifacts are detected by ATITool or any other instability
is noted, the heatsink is deemed inadequate to cool the video card in our test
system.
If the heatsink has a fan, the load state tests are repeated at various fan
speeds while the system case fan is left at its lowest setting of 7V. If the
card utilizes a passive cooler, the system fan is varied instead to study the
effect of system airflow on the heatsink's performance. System noise measurements
are made at each fan speed.
Estimating DC Power
The following power efficiency figures were obtained for the
Seasonic S12-600
used in our test system:
|
Seasonic S12-500 / 600 TEST RESULTS
|
|
DC Output (W)
|
65.3
|
89.7
|
148.7
|
198.5
|
249.5
|
300.2
|
|
AC Input (W)
|
87.0
|
115.0
|
183.1
|
242.1
|
305.0
|
370.2
|
|
Efficiency
|
75.1%
|
78.0%
|
81.2%
|
82.0%
|
81.8%
|
81.1%
|
This data is enough to give us a very good estimate of DC demand in our
test system. We extrapolate the DC power output from the measured AC power
input based on this data. We won't go through the math; it's easy enough
to figure out for yourself if you really want to.
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