ASUS EAH3870 512MB Graphics Card Review

Heat & Acoustical Performance

For this test we loaded the core of the ASUS HD3870 with 3dMark06’s Batch-Size rendering test at the highest triangle count with a resolution of 1600x1200 and 2xAA. This puts a constant high load on the core for the indicated time. All temperatures were recorded with Rivatuner’s temperature logging program.


While we were expecting to see the same high temperatures we experienced with the stock HD3870 cards, it seems like ASUS has done something a bit different with their TOP edition. Temperatures are kept much more manageable at ten degrees cooler than the stock card which is good to see.

However, this reduction in temperature comes at the penalty of the noise being produced by the fan. The original pre-release HIS HD3870 card we used for the stock tests barely ramped up its fan speed which resulted in quite high temperatures for a 55nm core. However, it seems ASUS has used different fan speed parameters in the BIOS they loaded the HD3870 TOP with since its fan constantly spins up to quite high RPMs in order to keep temperatures low. This results in a much larger acoustical footprint for this card by way of the “whoosh” of air it produces when the fan is asked to push massive amounts of air through the heatsink assembly. Don’t get us wrong; this card is still quite a bit quieter than a card like the 8800GTS 512MB and the noise it produces is not annoying in the least if you tend to play games at anything above low volume.


Power Consumption

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption.


With the Batch Render Test we are able to put MUCH less load on the CPU which results in a truer power consumption figure for the HD3870 cards than if we just loaded up a game. As we can see, the power used by even the overclocked 55nm core is well below the competing Nvidia cards. The additional overclock on the ASUS card does result in a 17W (peak) increase in power consumption over a stock HD3870 but this is still next to nothing in the grand scheme of things.