Temperature and NoiseTesting

Since video card temperatures and the heat generated bynext-generation cards have become an area of concern among enthusiastsand gamers, we want to take a closer look at how the GeForce GT 220series does at idle and under a full load.

EVGA GeForce GT 220 SSC DDR3 Idle Temperature:

At idle the EVGA GeForce GT 220 SSC DDR3 had amazingly low temperatures thatshocked even us.  As you can see from the screen shot above, the idle state of theRadeon HD 5870 drops the GPU frequency and memory down to just 135 MHz to help conserve power and lower temperatures.The results of the decrease in frequency really show as the GPU temperature at idle was just 29-30C!

EVGA GeForce GT 220 SSC DDR3 Load Temperature:

We fired up FurMark and ran the stability at 1280x1024, which wasenough to put the GPU at 100% load in order to get the highest loadtemperature possible. This application also charted the temperatureresults so you can see how the temperature rises and levels off, whichis very nice. The EVGA GeForce GT 220 SSC DDR3 maxed out at 55C. The fan on the EVGA GeForce GT 220 SSC DDR3 videocard was left on auto during temperature testing and it is fairly loud, to be honest.  People on both Newegg and the EVGA Forums questioned the noise levels on this card and we have to as well. The fan speed is dynamic and will increase/decrease depending on the GPU temp and GPU load, but even at idle it has a hum to it that is louder than anything else on our test system. We pulled out our trusty sound level meter and found the card to be running 70dBA at an idle, but this was before a vBIOS update.

After the vBIOS update we saw the idle noise levels go from 69-70dBA down to 66-66dBA, which is a modest drop. This video card was still very loud!