ATI Radeon HD 5450 & HD 5570 Review
Temperature
Temperature is a vital part of the whole balance between noise and cooling. We all want to know that when we sink our hard-earned money into our hardware, it won’t fail due to overheating caused by inadequate cooling solutions.
FurMark 1.8.0 – the new Hot Like Hell Edition – was used to load the GPU for 10 minutes and the peak temperature recorded. The idle temperature was taken before and after the test and verified to be the same in each case.
Both of the cards in question idled in the low- to mid-40s. The HD 5450 had a peak temperature of 63°C, while the HD 5570 crept up to a high of 71°C. These results were obtained in an air-conditioned room, with the ambient temperature maintained at 27°C.
The difference in the temperature between idle and load was also noted. The HD 5450 had an 18 degree increase while the more powerful HD 5570 got 29 degrees hotter than when idling.
Noise
Owing to the lack of a decibel meter, I had to play it by ear on this one. This was done at an approximate distance of three feet away with the chassis closed. I was pleased to find that while both of these reference cards were actively cooled, neither could be heard when GPU was under load. By default when the GPU is loaded and putting out more heat, the fans spin up to offer more cooling to the cards’ components.
The 5570 consumes 69 watts more power under load and 40 watts more in idle? No way, something must have gone wrong here. The results on other sites are in a different league – single digit watt difference in idle and ~30 watts under load.
Thanks for your comment Howitzer. The fact is exactly as I stated, this is the power draw on the *entire* system. Other sites may have the tools such as power meters that can measure the video card power draw at the slot level. I am only privy to a Kill-A-Watt unit.
The major factor in this is that the 1100W PSU that powers my system has driven up the idle power load quite a bit. Now the difference in the figures will also take into account any additional power draw from the CPU also being under load along with other smaller components like hard drive(s) spinning up and so on.
We do hope to continue improving our testing with better equipment, as our very limited resources will allow.
Thanks for your time. =)