AMD Radeon R7 260 1GB Video Card Review
Temperature & Noise Testing
No video card review would be complete with out looking at GPU temperatures and noise levels!
AMD Radeon R7 260 1GB Video Card Idle Temperature:
The AMD Radeon R7 260 1GB had an idle temperature of 25C in a room that was 22.0C (72F) and the single fan was spinning 20%.
AMD Radeon R7 260 1GB Gaming Temperature:
When playing Far Cry 3 and Battlefield 3 for about 30 minutes each, we hit 63C on the AMD Radeon R7 260 with the fan speed running at 37%. Running at just 25C at idle and hitting 63C when gaming are very good temperature results.
Sound Testing
We recently upgraded our sound meter to an Extech sound level meter with 1.5dB accuracy that meets Type 2 standards. This meter ranges from 35dB to 90dB on the low measurement range, which is perfect for us as our test room usually averages around 36dB. We measure the sound level two inches above the corner of the motherboard with ‘A’ frequency weighting. The microphone wind cover is used to make sure no wind is blowing across the microphone, which would seriously throw off the data.
The AMD Radeon R7 260 with the AMD reference cooler design is a very quiet card and registered 39.6dB at idle and 43.5dB at full load just off the edge of the motherboard.