Is it normal that my GPU makes this sound?

[Yukicore]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWa_jC34h1o&

 

[blackened23]

Coil whine maybe?

 

[tweakboy]

Hardware usually doesn't make noise. Especially when no mechanical.

Its the Fan on your video card. Go take the fan very low 20 percent and see how the noise is. If you don't hear it take it up to 100 percent then do you hear it ?

At this point you can RMA or you can take off the heatsink fan off the video card voiding warranty and buy a custom cooler for your card. gl

 

[hokies83]

Choke whine the Sapphire OC 7970 i had did the samething but times it by about 10 noise level lol.

Same day it came out of the box it was on it's way back to Newegg that after noon

If you check the feed back on those cards on the Egg there Famous for it.

 

[Yukicore]

It's not the fan, I actually risked a bit by doing this, but I have 2 fans, so it's not that big of a risk. I forced the fan to stop, and the sound was still there. It's not the fan, I also get this noise when getting very high frames such as 500, it's like people call it coil whine.

I just tried 100% fan speed, and all I get is loud fan noise, but nothing like the whining ultra sound like I was getting in the video

 

[xcal237]

choke whine... i had this on my old 775 motherboard it was annoying as heck

 

[Yukicore]

What do I do, then? I definitely won't give it back, so that they can send me it back, saying that it is alright, or giving me another one of these, which might have this issue even more noticeable.

Well after that point I might give them another time, and then another and then they would decide to give me an option to buy another card. This time I would choose GTX 670, but if it would have the same problem? And it's at some games better than 7950, but also at some worse.

Any ideas of what I should do next?

I might just throw some more money to get even better card, as the economical situation has gone up since I bought it. But that would require for all the RMA's. Wow, but I just realized that there is no better cards, well with that I mean cards which give you performance for their price, I do not want to buy GTX690 as it's too expensive, and GTX680 is not much of an improvement compared to GTX670, but costs so much more and with HD7970 I will get the same coil whine, if not more.

 

[xcal237]

i have a 670 and no ive never heard of someone having problems with coil whine with it. and no its not faster than a 670 stock unless you oc which it can be faster. if you have had it >30 days then id return it to the retailer and request a replacement if not then i would just keep it and deal with the noise; thats what i did with my motherboard.

 

[tweakboy]

Newegg is horrible they send used stuff or refurbished stuff... and advertised as new comes used. www.amazon.com pownz but make sure its not being shipped by NewEgg.com cuz you might get bunk hardware. gl

Do you have anything to back that up? That's a pretty serious accusation, TB
-ViRGE

 

[hokies83]

RMA the card and try another brand...

My Power Color PCs+ did not have that Issue and came clocked at 1100mhz.

 

[tweakboy]

Ouch looks like its a video card headed for early retirement. We have all lost video cards it happens.

Buy yourself a better one now. gl

 

[Yukicore]

Hey but seriously, is a 670 a better choice???

Looking @ 670 MSI OC Twin Frozr Power Edition. I will need to pay up 70$ more.

 

[Rvenger]

Nvidia cards seem to have less coil whine. At least for me.

 

[Yukicore]

I bought the card 50 days ago, I can't exchange it anymore, can I?

 

[birthdaymonkey]

I have a 670 that can exhibit coil whine in some cases (e.g. the credit screen after Heaven benchmark/demo, where I assume it's drawing the screen at many hundreds of FPS). However, I don't hear it under normal gaming conditions.

 

[hokies83]

I bought the card 50 days ago, I can't exchange it anymore, can I?

No i do not think so i think Neweggs is 30days ur gonna ahve to RMA with Sapphire now.

 

[ZeroRift]

Have you tried vsync? That usually takes care of coil whine if you don't mind the few ms of added lag.

 

[Yukicore]

I have a 670 that can exhibit coil whine in some cases (e.g. the credit screen after Heaven benchmark/demo, where I assume it's drawing the screen at many hundreds of FPS). However, I don't hear it under normal gaming conditions.

This confirms it, I think all or most at least High End graphics cards suffer from this, it's something to do with high bandwidth and high memory usage. It's unavoidable, at least for now. Nvidia cards don't have as fast bandwidth, which makes the sound it makes less noticeable. For comparison 670 has 192000 MB/sec bandwidth, while 7950 has 240000 MB/sec. It's 20% more, and that's a lot.

I might be wrong, but this is all that I can think of, as it's definitely not caused by core speed or fans (In this case). And memory is what's used more than usual gaming requires, and one of the elements tested in these graphical focused benchmarks.

It might worse than it should for me, or it also might be better, I don't know.

All I know is that for it to process the many frames it requires a lot of memory resources, and high usage makes this sound. Vsync is the fix for this issue, but not completely.

 

[hokies83]

Comes from using Cheap parts on the boards if the Board is HQ it will not do it..

As a Ref Galaxy builds there Gpus with very HQ parts like MSI does and never have i had choke whine with Galaxy/Msi

And should not be something you call Normal RMA the card this lets Sapphire know this is UN acceptable.

Try a Ref design card that is built to Amd specs and see if it does it.

 

[RussianSensation]

I bought the card 50 days ago, I can't exchange it anymore, can I?

Do you have stand-alone computer speakers or headphones? I didn't see them in the video.

Do you play your games without sound / music on? I listened to the video and I mostly heard fan noise with very small amount of choke whine when you move in the mic this close. However, if you close the case and play actual games with volume turned up, how can you even hear that?

Other cases of users posting coil whine I've heard are real mechanical frequency noise that's actually annoying.

Try a Ref design card that is built to Amd specs and see if it does it.

That makes no sense. The Sapphire DX is AMD reference design but it has added 1 more VRM for memory. The coil whine/choke whine is related to the traditional core choke design. Any GPU in the world, whether NV, AMD, ATI, Matrox could have coil whine if is uses standard chokes. Going with a reference design chances nothing. To guarantee no coil whine, you have to get a card with after-market chokes.

Really the only way to 99% guarantee you get none is to go for a card that has Super Allow style chokes (like Asus DCUII) or has high-end after-market chokes like Vapor-X, MSI Lightning editions or similar.

But it seems even the after-market chokes differ in selection between GPU makers:

"While overclocked, the MSI GTX 660 Ti PE temperature increased to 77 degrees Celsius, but the fans did have a noticeable increase their speed. We also observed some coil whine coming from the card, especially when overclocked when some games were at their intro and loading screens and the observed frame rate was over several hundred frames per second." ~ HardOCP

As a Ref Galaxy builds there Gpus with very HQ parts like MSI does and never have i had choke whine with Galaxy/Msi

That's 100% false. There are no special components on the reference Galaxy cards, at all. Galaxy reference boards are identical in component selection to any other reference GTX670/680 reference card. None of those designs use after-market chokes. The Galaxy cards that do use after-market chokes are non-reference design Dual-Fan editions with Blue PCB.

As far as Galaxy GTX680 White Edition you had, that card has no special chokes at all. If you didn't have coil whine on it, that's just luck of the draw but Galaxy didn't go out of its way to install after-market chokes on the board.

^ Those are exactly the same as many reference designs cards have like the Sapphire 7970

If you don't want coil whine, you have to get a non-reference board. With any NV or AMD reference board, you get standard chokes, which means coil whine lottery.

 

[Yukicore]

So Sapphire doesn't seem to give you anything ''aftermarket'' except for the custom fans? And overclocking capabilities.
Damn, I wish I would have dug in some more before making my purchase, but I was digging so hard...
Well it is the first ever home, custom built PC I have ever bought.

RussianSensation, you seem to have a Sapphire Dual-X 7900 Series yourself, do you experience this too? At least now I know that it's normal, and I'll be looking out for after-market chokes next time I buy a video card. Probably in 2-3 Years, It probably wont last much longer, not as life-span goes, but as performance requirement growth.

Well but anyway, I can sure as hell say that even with the coil whine it's so much more quieter than PS3 Slim, glad I got rid of that machine, the current consoles had to go away a long time ago. And looks like they will be here for 1 year at least.

 

[hokies83]

Do you have stand-alone computer speakers or headphones? I didn't see them in the video.

Do you play your games without sound / music on? I listened to the video and I mostly heard fan noise with very small amount of choke whine when you move in the mic this close. However, if you close the case and play actual games with volume turned up, how can you even hear that?

Other cases of users posting coil whine I've heard are real mechanical frequency noise that's actually annoying.




That makes no sense. The Sapphire DX is AMD reference design but it has added 1 more VRM for memory. The coil whine/choke whine is related to the traditional core choke design. Any GPU in the world, whether NV, AMD, ATI, Matrox could have coil whine if is uses standard chokes. Going with a reference design chances nothing. To guarantee no coil whine, you have to get a card with after-market chokes.

Really the only way to 99% guarantee you get none is to go for a card that has Super Allow style chokes (like Asus DCUII) or has high-end after-market chokes like Vapor-X, MSI Lightning editions or similar.

But it seems even the after-market chokes differ in selection between GPU makers:

"While overclocked, the MSI GTX 660 Ti PE temperature increased to 77 degrees Celsius, but the fans did have a noticeable increase their speed. We also observed some coil whine coming from the card, especially when overclocked when some games were at their intro and loading screens and the observed frame rate was over several hundred frames per second." ~ HardOCP



That's 100% false. There are no special components on the reference Galaxy cards, at all. Galaxy reference boards are identical in component selection to any other reference GTX670/680 reference card. None of those designs use after-market chokes. The Galaxy cards that do use after-market chokes are non-reference design Dual-Fan editions with Blue PCB.

As far as Galaxy GTX680 White Edition you had, that card has no special chokes at all. If you didn't have coil whine on it, that's just luck of the draw but Galaxy didn't go out of its way to install after-market chokes on the board.

^ Those are exactly the same as many reference designs cards have like the Sapphire 7970

If you don't want coil whine, you have to get a non-reference board. With any NV or AMD reference board, you get standard chokes, which means coil whine lottery.

My Statement above was talking about the companys not reference cards.

And the Galaxy 4GB model you linked i have 2 of them and have took them apart myself and looked.

And if you did not know they re designed the pcb on them that is a release picture they now look like this... Best 4GB 680 by a land slide... but people just have no Clue and just suggest what brand there a fan of..

 

[RussianSensation]

So Sapphire doesn't seem to give you anything ''aftermarket'' except for the custom fans? And overclocking capabilities.

Yup. You get 1 extra VRM for memory (5+2) setup vs. 5+1 on the reference 7970 but it is all on reference PCB and same traditional chokes. The 2 VRMs for memory allow the DX card to overclock the memory better than most 7970s and it has a heatsink on the memory that helps to cool it. There is also the custom fan. Otherwise, there are no special after-market PCB/VRM components on that card.

The premium Sapphire cards are called Vapor-X / TOXIC. They are made on a custom PCB with Black Diamond Chokes (which is just a fancy marketing term for solid core chokes).

Asus calls solid core chokes Super Alloy Power design.

MSI calls them Golden SSC chokes.

PowerColor calls it the Platinum PowerKIT.

Notice, how all the chokes on these boards look completely different from reference traditional chokes? If you buy a card with traditional choke, you just get the standard hollow chokes which can coil whine.

Damn, I wish I would have dug in some more before making my purchase, but I was digging so hard...
Well it is the first ever home, custom built PC I have ever bought.

This really became a problem in the last 5 years. In the past GPUs weren't this power consuming and this problem wasn't this prevalent. Maybe in the past higher quality chokes were used but I doubt that. I think it's the load that current GPUs put on VRMs. Also, it could be that people with loud reference blowers just cannot hear the coil whine over the fan noise levels. Once you get a quieter after-market card, the entire noise levels of your desktop decreases and you start to hear things you haven't heard before, coil whine being one of them. Sometimes if the coil whine is really bad, it can overpower all the fans.

, you seem to have a Sapphire Dual-X 7900 Series yourself, do you experience this too? At least now I know that it's normal, and I'll be looking out for after-market chokes next time I buy a video card.

I get it in 3 specific instances:

1) During 2D loading screens when GPU frames skyrocket
2) Triangle of Death MSI Afterburner GPU-test
3) Slight whine when I run Windows Experience Index

When I am gaming though I cannot hear it at all since I have a 5.1 system and if there are instances of this during gaming, I certainly haven't noticed because I play with sound on.

What you have is perfectly normal and why there are so many after-market cards with higher quality chokes for sale ready to charge you extra!

Well but anyway, I can sure as hell say that even with the coil whine it's so much more quieter than PS3 Slim, glad I got rid of that machine, the current consoles had to go away a long time ago. And looks like they will be here for 1 year at least.

When you play games, I am guessing you can only hear it during loading screens since otherwise with a sound system or headphones, I can't see how you'd hear it. You could set up a custom fan profile to lower then fan speed/noise on the 7970. I find 53-57% fan speed make the card very quiet and still keeps the temperatures at 74*C or below for me even at 1150mhz.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

Really the only way to 99% guarantee you get none is to go for a card that has Super Allow style chokes (like Asus DCUII) or has high-end after-market chokes like Vapor-X, MSI Lightning editions or similar.

I have an Asus GTX 670 DCII, and as I mentioned earlier, I get coil noise under certain specific conditions. So it seems that even having high-end chokes doesn't guarantee that your card will be free of electrical noise.

My own suspicion (and this is merely a gut feeling) is that all video cards make electrical noise to some extent; user sensitivity and ambient sounds (including fans, game sounds) together account for whether or not it gets noticed.

 

[Yukicore]

When you play games, I am guessing you can only hear it during loading screens since otherwise with a sound system or headphones, I can't see how you'd hear it. You could set up a custom fan profile to lower then fan speed/noise on the 7970. I find 53-57% fan speed make the card very quiet and still keeps the temperatures at 74*C or below for me even at 1150mhz.

Yeah, but from aside I probably look like I am using some old garbage PC, which is struggling and whining hard that it can't run. ;D

My card is also really cool, and quiet. Only I have another whiny bastard in my PC, it's a PC case fan (120mm) called Xilence XQ Dual Wing pwm. In reviews it says that it's very quiet, well it is, except it gives me some kind of electric whine, when spinning at lower rpm's, do you know how to fix that? It's pretty annoying.

I actually now found a Sapphire Vapor-X which costs 40$ less than my sapphire, but it has by 50MHz slower clock speed.