Power, temps and noise
These numbers represent idle and load power-draw when connected to three screens. We're mildly surprised that the higher overclocks on the EVGA card lead to (slightly) lower power numbers than the Gigabyte. Sapphire's TOXIC card is over-volted and clocked in very close to the Radeon HD 7970's ceiling, and these two factors combine to push its system-wide power-draw 33 per cent higher.
EVGA has tuned the cooler to run at acceptable temperatures while also focussing on near-silent operation.
Classified is the quietest of our quartet. Logs show the fan to spin at 31 per cent of maximum, though NVIDIA, wanting to keep GTX 680s quiet, generally doesn't let partners indulge in banshee-like noise.
EVGA, then, strikes a very sound balance between power, GPU temperature and noise.
