Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 Vapor-X OC 6GB Graphics Card Review

Noise is generally the bain of most consumers lives and in the hope of finding the quietest operation, we feel it’s necessary to show you the audio level of components. We use the same components throughout this test and use a sound level meter to record the audio level of the system with a passive graphics card installed. Once we have the level recorded with the passive card, we continue to change the graphics card for the one that we are testing. Due to us having the audio level recorded before installation, it gives us a guide to work with and shows that anything over our initial level is an audio gain.

Looking the physical properties of the card, Sapphire have pulled it off again with yet another card that runs no louder than any of its competitors and what only appears to be a whisper at idle. Fan acoustics aside, there was one aspect of the card’s acoustic output that we could not but take note of and this relates to the buzz and whine from the caps and VRMs on the board when under load. Granted I’ve always heard a little amount of noise from these components on any card when under load, but these were just that more noticeable.