Gigabyte R9 270X Windforce OC Review

1. Introduction2. Gigabyte R9 270X Windforce OC3. Gigabyte R9 270X Windforce OC (Super High Res Gallery)4. Testing Methodology5. Unigine Heaven Benchmark6. Unigine Valley Benchmark7. 3DMark Vantage8. 3DMark 119. 3DMark10. Alien V Predator11. Sleeping Dogs12. Total War: ROME 213. Dirt ShowDown14. Tomb Raider15. Metro Last Light16. GRID 217. Splinter Cell Blacklist18. Thermal Dynamics19. Acoustics Performance20. Power Consumption21. Overclocking22. Closing Thoughts23. View All Pages

We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.

We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa.

Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

KitGuru noise guide

10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

The benefits of using three quality fans, instead of two. Not only is cooling performance class leading, but the noise levels are also close to the best in this sector. Exceptional results for the WindForce cooling system.

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