Credit: Brad Chacos/IDG
Power draw, thermals, and synthetics
We also tested the Sapphire Pulse RX 5700 using 3DMark’s highly respected Fire Strike synthetic benchmark. Fire Strike runs at 1080p, Fire Strike Extreme runs at 1440p, and Fire Strike Ultra runs at 4K resolution. All render the same scene, but with more intense graphical effects as you move up the scale, so that Extreme and Ultra flavors stress GPUs even more. We record the graphics score to eliminate variance from the CPU.
Brad Chacos/IDGWe test thermals by leaving either AMD’s Wattman (for Radeon GPUs) or EVGA’s Precision X1 (for GeForce GPUs) open during the F1 2018 five-lap power draw test, noting the highest maximum temperature at the end.
Brad Chacos/IDGWe test power draw by looping the F1 2018 benchmark for about 20 minutes after we’ve benchmarked everything else, and noting the highest reading on our Watts Up Pro meter. The initial part of the race, where all competing cars are onscreen simultaneously, tends to be the most demanding portion.
Brad Chacos/IDGNo surprises here. The slightly overclocked Sapphire Pulse draws slightly more power than the reference Radeon RX 5700, while its dual-axial cooler provides much better cooling. It’s also noticeably quieter even in Performance mode. Not bad for an extra nine dollars! And while we covered this in more detail in our original Radeon RX 5700 review, it's worth highlighting again that AMD's new RDNA architecture on the 7nm manufacturing process has managed to pull ahead of Nvidia's vaunted power efficiency, delivering more performance at less peak power.
Next page: Should you buy the Sapphire Pulse RX 5700?
