Sapphire HD5550 Ultimate Edition review

We recorded temperatures at idle after resting in Windows for 30 minutes, and then we tested load by using the synthetic test Furmark. The card was inside a Silverstone Raven 02 for the testing. Room ambient was kept at 25c throughout.

Furmark is a synthetic test and as such pushes video cards harder than any games on the market. As such this is strictly a ‘worst case scenario' which we always like to present in our reviews. While gaming, the card never exceeded 50c under load, 9 degrees lower than we recorded with Furmark stress testing. This is a seriously impressive cooler.

It is not likely people will be using a Raven 02 with a card like this so we also tested inside a Shuttle HTPC chassis.

Ambient temperatures inside the Shuttle rose by roughly 2-3 degrees C and the Sapphire card held results in accordance with this thermal increase. Under load we were impressed to see just over 60c recorded and again when gaming you can comfortably reduce our load results by 8-9c.

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