Noise, plus overclocking
We want to shed some analytical light on the system noise levels generated when high-end cards are installed. To this end, we're using a PCE-318 noise meter placed at the front of a Corsair Obsidian 700D chassis that has the side panel on and card(s) screwed in. Only the test system is running in a quiet room with a sound floor of 28dB. Decibel readings are noted for idle, load (COD: Black Ops) and super-load (FurMark) after 10 minutes have elapsed.
Again, the reference cooler isn't as good as, say, a quality partner card.
Overclocking
We managed to push the reference card up to 875MHz core and 5,250MHz memory - shy of Radeon HD 6970 speeds, mind - and ran through Aliens vs. Predator and Just Cause 2 at the 2,560x1,600 setting.
Pumping up performance by an average of 7.8 per cent across the two games, AMD's card doesn't have the stratospheric overclocking ability of NVIDIA's GTX 560 Ti.
