Power and Thermals

For the temperature and wattage tests,we hook the PC up to a wattage metre and measure temperatures and power draws at idle and load settings. Furmark is used on max settings with extreme burn mode activated along with Post FX to stress the system. We also utilise the built in GPU temperature monitor for measuring thermals.

Wattage

Well it’s not hugely surprising that this card was going to draw a lot of power. Nearly 100w more than the older 5850. Considering there’s a lot more performance made available from the dual chips, the bang per wattage is much higher in the GTX 590. Just be aware that you’ll need a good PSU to power this.

Please note that these wattage results are for the full system, not just the GPUs.

Temperature

Ambient termpeature was 20 degrees C at time of temperature taking.

Since there are duel cores, I took temperatures for each.

Core1 Idle: 39
Core1 Load: 83

Core2 Idle: 42
Core2 Load: 86

Idle temperatures were quite impressive for this GPU, but the load ones would cause some concern in a hot climate/room. I would recommend making sure you have a good cooling setup in your PC if purchasing one of these cards. That said, if you’re paying nearly half a grand for this one GPU, chances are you can afford to find an aftermarket cooler. Because of the noise when this thing kicks up to speed, I’d recommend it.