NVIDIA GeForce2/3 Titanium Roundup - January 2002

Temperatures

To evaluate how each card's cooling solution worked, we decided to measure the core temperature of each card tested. To do this we used a thermistor on our motherboard and attached it to the back of the video card's PCB, directly behind the core. A Quake III Arena loop was then run for 10 minutes and the highest temperature reached in this time period was recorded. Monitoring information was displayed by Motherboard Monitor version 5.1.0.4. Let's let the numbers speak for themselves.

GeForce2 Ti 200

The temperature difference between the warmest GeForce2 Ti 200 and the coolest was 7 degrees Fahrenheit or 6%.

GeForce3 Ti 200

There is quite a range in GeForce3 Ti 500 temperatures, with the coolest card running 16 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the warmest one. This represents a 14% temperature difference.

GeForce3 Ti 500

GeForce3 Ti 500 cards also differed in temperatures quite a bit. The temperature range ran from 127 degrees Fahrenheit to 154 degrees Fahrenheit, a 27 degree difference. Cards pretty much filled out the spectrum, with no one card running drastically warmer than the one before it. It is interesting to note that the most aggressive looking cooling solutions do not necessarily provide the best cooling performance.