ATI Radeon HD 5830 Review

Noise

Owing to the lack of a decibel meter, I had to play it by ear as usual. 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 cards were actively cooled, neither could be heard when GPU was idling. When the GPU is loaded and putting out more heat, the fans spin up to offer more cooling to the cards’ components.

The fan on the HD 5830 runs at roughly 21% of it full speed at idle When it spins up under heavy load, it becomes audible at about 30% and gets loud at 50%. At 100% fan speed, you get the blow-dryer-sounding-like-an-aircraft-taking-off effect.

Note:

Keep in mind that this HD 5830 uses the reference design. The AiB partners will no doubt offer their own cooling solutions which may or may not be better and/or quieter.

Some of these designs are shown here.