Temperature
To measure core GPU temperature, MSI's Kombustor was used. The idle temperature was taken after leaving nothing running for up to 15 minutes. The load temperature was taken 15 minutes after starting Kombuster for Multi-Core graphics cards.
The large cooling solution used by ASUS really seems to have paid off as the card remains cool even during extreme usage. The overclocked cooling performance was also very impressive, but to achieve these results the fan rotation had to be set at 75%, which makes it rather loud.
Power Usage
To measure power usage, a Kill A Watt P4400 power meter was used. Note that the above numbers represent the power drain for the entire benchmarking system, not just the video cards themselves. For the 'idle' readings we measured the power drain from the desktop, with no applications running; for the 'load' situation, we took the sustained peak power drain readings at the end of a 30 minute Kombustor run.
Wow! The power requirement for this card is huge! Honestly this is to be expected though, so If you are planning on picking this card up make sure you have an adequate power supply.
Conclusion
Any doubts you had about the ASUS ARES HD 5970 should be put to rest, as this is hands down the fastest graphics card that has made its way to the Neoseeker testing labs. Every game with the exception of Darkest of Days had the ARES performing beyond all the comparison cards. This is no small feat as we had many of the fastest graphics cards for comparison; even the NVIDIA GTX 480 was no match for the ARES.
The custom made cooling solution used on the ARES was equally amazing! It kept both cores very cool and even during the most demanding applications the card was always under the 80°C mark. This is of course due to the dual copper heatsinks that are found on each core, the 100mm case fan and the heatspreader placed over the memory and VRM. However, the cooling solution is very heavy and as a result and the card weighs in at around 5 pounds, so this is one graphics card that must be secured firmly into place.
The biggest issues with the graphics card are its amazingly high power consumption and an equally astronomical asking price. The power requirement is understandable as this is a lot of card, and most enthusiasts are running high wattage power supplies these days anyway. The $1200 dollar retail price on the other hand might be a harder pill to swallow, ensuring that only a few very select people will ever have this graphics card in their system. Still, with the performance level and just how cool this card is, if you ever feel the urge to splurge, I say don't hesitate!
So, in the end this graphics card lives up to all expectations. Its fast, it's powerful and even though I won't claim it to be the fastest graphics card in the world, I won`t stop ASUS for making that claim.
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