Asus EN9600GT Silent Edition Graphics Card

TEST RESULTS

Baseline, with Integrated Graphics: First, here are the results of our baseline results of the system with just its integrated graphics, without a discrete video card. We'll also need the power consumption reading during CPUBurn to estimate the actual power draw of discrete card later.

Asus EN9600GT Silent:

Despite our misgivings about its design, the passive heatsink employed by Asus passed testing with flying colors. No visible artifacts or other instability was exhibited during stress testing, and the temperatures were adequate. With the system fan at its minimum speed, the GPU temperature reached 91°C — while certainly not a good result, it is acceptable in the context of an artificially extended, extreme load on both GPU and CPU. The heat emanating off the card affected the CPU temperature, which was 10°C higher than in the baseline system. Increasing speed of the the system fan, which is in close proximity to the CPU heatsink, remedied the situation.

With a little extra airflow, the GPU ran much cooler. Its temperature dropped by 10°C with the case fan at 9V, and a further 7°C with the case fan at 12V. This is consistent with our previous testing with passive video card heatsinks — airflow, no matter how indirect, is vital. Our test system has no intake fan, and the exhaust fan is a Nexus 120mm, which does not push much air. The 74°C GPU and 38°C CPU temperatures reached with this case fan set at 12V is very good.

It should also be noted that high GPU temperature led to high power consumption. When CPUBurn and ATITool were run with the system fan at 7V, the power draw read 208W initially. The power gradually increased as the card heated up, eventually reaching a plateau of 220W. This is increased occurred because the power efficiency of voltage regulators (and other components) on the board decreased as they became hotter. That's extra incentive to keep your graphics card cool.