Testing (continued):

Thermal Testing:

Thermal testing was conducted by monitoring idle and load GPU temperatures with GPU-Z v0.7.2. The idle condition was established by recording the temperature after letting the system sit for 30 minutes with only GPU-Z launched. The load condition was established by running Unigine Heaven two times back-to-back, with GPU-Z set to hold the maximum temperature. All testing was completed with the case open in a room with an ambient temperature of approximately 20C.

The chart below shows the idle results, where the larger fan and possible improved efficiency of the HD7730 allow it to idle the lowest. I was surprised to see thermal results presented for the Intel HD solution, and I really don't know if they are all that accurate since the GPU is found within the CPU.



Under the load of some DirectX 11 3D gaming simulation, the HD7730 is able to keep its cool, while also not ramping up the speed/noise of the fan much at all. It remained very quiet during this test, and afterward I used the Catalyst Overdrive feature to manually adjust the fan to full speed. It is capable of making some noise - it just wasn't necessary for this test! The larger, more enthusiast inspired fan found on the HD7730 is clearly a benefit to keeping things cool, as the two Nvidia cards featured small fans on rather basic looking coolers.