Synthetic Heat Run
We run the GX60 for 45 minutes with a full load on the CPU and GPU in order to see how hot parts of the system become. In the chart above, there's a dip in GPU temperature at the 15-minute mark, right where we switch anti-aliasing off to get the GPU running warmer.
The GPU slowly heats up to 84 degrees Celsius and stays between 83 and 84 degrees for most of the testing. Meanwhile, the CPU stays close to 60 C, with the highest recorded reading being 62.1 C.
Throughout the test run, the A10's cores jump between frequencies to avoid cresting 60 degrees. As the line graph above shows, the speed stays mostly between 2.0 and 2.3 GHz, with a few jumps to the full 2.7 GHz Turbo Core mode.
Ordinarily, this section also includes before-and-after heat measurements from the top of the machine, but this is a waste of time with the GX60. After three hours of running at full load, the top of the GX60 is just as cool to the touch as before testing began. In fact, the only areas expelling warmth are the exhaust vents themselves. The bottom of the GX60 stays cool as long as those vents remain unblocked.
The GX60's thermal characteristics are excellent. So long as you keep the A10 under 60 degrees, it'll run at its highest performance level. While we wish the APU was more tolerant of higher temperatures, at least its behavior is predictable.
