Temps and overclocking
Temperatures
The Sapphire ATOMIC X2 temperatures were taken with the frequencies set to 878/1,910MHz - as per the benchmark numbers.| Graphics cards | Sapphire Atomic HD 3870 X2 1024MiB | HIS Radeon HD 3870 X2 1024MiB | Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512MiB | MSI NX8800GTS-T2D512E-OC |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ambient temperature in degrees C | 19.5 | 19 | 20.5 | 19.5 |
| Idle temperature in degrees C | 51 | 56 | 55 | 43 |
| Load temperature in degrees C | 57 | 80 | 89 | 64 |
| Ambient-to-load delta in degrees C | 37.5 | 61 | 68.5 | 45.5 |
There's little doubt that well-implemented watercooling is better at keeping the GPUs cooler than traditional air cooling, and the variances between idle-and-load temperatures between the Sapphire and HIS Radeon HD 3870 X2s - one watercooled and one aircooled - is evidence enough of that.
The problem with the Sapphire, as we noted earlier, is one of noise, though.
