Question After 20 years, I finally got a GPU with HORRIBLE coil whine

[UsandThem]

I had been Folding with it about 9 months (in a Folding-only PC), and I started noticing a minor noise a few months back. At first I thought one of the fans was developing a bad bearing or something, as the noise was intermittent and not too loud. It's this card right here: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814932029

The other day I pulled my 1080ti out of my main PC to get ready to sell, and put the Gigabyte 1070ti in my main PC. The noise was horrible and really loud, so I figured it had to be a bad bearing. So I pull the card out, inspect its fans, and they all are good. I reinstall it and leave the side panel off of my case, and holy moly is some annoying, loud coil whine. I've seen people talking about coil whine over the years on here, and I do not see how someone could stand that in their main PC (unless they wear closed-back headphones when gaming).

I reckon I should RMA it, but after reading all the Gigabyte RMA horror stories lately, I'm afraid I'll just waste money sending it back to them to claim "item has physical damage, warranty void". Even though this card is in pristine condition, and definitely does not have any damage. I guess I could always put it back in the Folding-only PC since that PC is in a room by itself. I just have not had very good luck with Gigabyte lately after so many years of very good luck with their products. Decisions, decisions.........

 

[railven]

I may have had coil whine in the past, but it might not have been bad enough to hear it over the fans. Although, my current setup is 2x 360 radiators with the CPU and (single) GPU cooled. It sounds like a bit of overkill -- and arguably, it is -- but I do it so I can run the fans a bit lower and still get effective cooling at a low noise level. Well, what that meant is that my ASUS Strix 1080 Ti's coil whine was able to become quite noticeable. Although, I'm still not sure if it is coil whine as I've never actually heard it before. It sounds a lot more like a pump (sort of like a whirring noise), but it's only audible if I'm playing a game. If I have a windowed game, I can click out of the window, and the noise goes away, but if I click back into it, the noise comes back. (My pumps and fans are controlled via two separate Noctua manual PWM controllers, so there's nothing ramping pumps/fans up.)

Fortunately, I haven't heard a peep from my EVGA 2080 Ti, which I'm quite glad about.

My 1080 Ti FE had a little squeal. Definitely the first card I had with audible coil whine. It wasn't overtly irritating but it was audible. It sounds like a high pitch whine, can easily drown out in fans (but I moved case to top of desk so more noticeable) headphones killed it.

My RTX 2080 Ti sounds nothing like my 1080 Ti, it sounds more like you said - a water pump. When I first set it up I wasn't sure if it was the RTX or my pump. Turning the pump off concluded it was the card. It was irritatingly loud. So much so, gaming without headphones was distracting. Until you get sucked into the game of course, but headphones were a must (at times you can hear it through low audio scenes). I'll be RMA'ing it for different reasons but I hope my replacement doesn't have that level of coil whine. I just accepted (c'est la vie) but boy was it bad.

 

[WT]

Yet another Fury owner here reporting his coil whine issues. I haven't purchased video cards like I had years back, when I got a new card every 2 years, so I've been running behind the curve for years now. I'd read a lot of threads on coil whine, and until I ran the Heaven benchmark on my cards (I prefer Powercolor, owning both a 7970 and a PCS+ 290x), I had never even heard it before. The 7970 moreso than the 290x, but it was never noticeable in games using an Antec 750w High Current PSU. I picked up a Sapphire Nitro Fury last month and ... WoW .. its bad .. I mean, REALLY bad. The coil whine is much louder and it starts even at the menu screens in games.

I had an issue with the Antec, so I swapped it out with a Corsair TX850M, and most of the coil whine has subsided. Its not gone (I don't think a Fury will ever be able to run without coil whine), but it's at least bearable now. It's crazy how silent the Fury is (the fans don't even spin in 2D), but then the coil whine kicks in in games and spoils all the fun.

 

[Feld]

Yet another Fury owner here reporting his coil whine issues. I haven't purchased video cards like I had years back, when I got a new card every 2 years, so I've been running behind the curve for years now. I'd read a lot of threads on coil whine, and until I ran the Heaven benchmark on my cards (I prefer Powercolor, owning both a 7970 and a PCS+ 290x), I had never even heard it before. The 7970 moreso than the 290x, but it was never noticeable in games using an Antec 750w High Current PSU. I picked up a Sapphire Nitro Fury last month and ... WoW .. its bad .. I mean, REALLY bad. The coil whine is much louder and it starts even at the menu screens in games.

I had an issue with the Antec, so I swapped it out with a Corsair TX850M, and most of the coil whine has subsided. Its not gone (I don't think a Fury will ever be able to run without coil whine), but it's at least bearable now. It's crazy how silent the Fury is (the fans don't even spin in 2D), but then the coil whine kicks in in games and spoils all the fun.

Although my XFX Fury had horrendous coil whine that made me return it, later on I did pick up an XFX Fury X that was dead silent at all times. Not a hint of coil whine even running 3dmark at 1080p. Coil whine was indeed a prevalent issue with Fiji, especially with the early batches of cards that came out, but not every card suffered from it. AMD seemed to get it sorted out over time.