Power, Temperature, And Noise Benchmarks
Of all of the cards tested in this review, only the Radeon HD 6670 GDDR5 and Radeon HD 7750 are reference models. Keep this in mind when interpreting the following charts, since noise, power, and thermal measurements are affected by non-reference voltages and coolers.
Nvidia’s GeForce GT 640, based on the 28 nm GK107 GPU, leads the pack in power consumption (though the Radeon HD 6670 GDDR5 and 7750 aren’t far behind). Note the high idle power use of the Radeon HD 6750.
Temperatures are definitely affected by aftermarket coolers, making this a difficult comparison. However, the new GeForce card runs coolly, despite its simple reference-based cooler. The small, single-slot Radeon HD 7750 struggles in comparison.
All of the cards we tested are acoustically-tolerable. The Radeon HD 7750 is a little louder than the rest of the pack under load, but it’s not problematic by any stretch.