Report: graphics cards and thermal characteristics
by Damien Triolet
Published on April 20, 2010
Radeon HD 5770
The Radeon HD 5770 uses a more complex design than the one used for the Radeon HD 5750. There’s a chassis around the cooler and turbine that brings in cool air. Some of the hot air can be expelled from the box via the small grill situated at the back of the card.
Infrared thermography
System at idle.
System in load.
Graphics card at idle.
Graphics card in load.
While the Radeon HD 5770 doesn’t heat up enormously, you’ll see that the power stage remains quite hot in load without reaching the extremes of the Radeon HD 4800s.
Temperature and noise readings
Note that in spite of the vent, very little hot air is actually funnelled out of the box. This is due to two things: the grill is very small and the GPU is relatively undemanding in terms of power consumption. This second point means that other system components don’t suffer from too much hot air coming from the card inside the casing.
