Reviews of modern cards and noise levels...

[Deanodarlo]

I've bought the last few cards based on reviews mentioning just how good the coolers are and how quiet they are under load. I have a quiet compact case with three 120mm low RPM case fans, hitting about 800-900 rpm. (four including PSU).

The thing is, they never seem accurate! I guess it's because of case airflow, case size and build material, positioning (desk or floor) and subjective opinion. Plus they bench in open systems. However, what a review seems to deem quiet I certainly don't.

Now I don't mind a bit of noise, but the last few cards all were unreasonably loud during intensive gaming. Louder than a reference GTX 280 leaf blower style which was about my limit on noise.

I bought a 6870 Twin Forza III and whilst it was quiet idle (as nearly all cards are), it was very noisy under load when playing intensive games.

Switched to a Gigabyte 560 Ti, that too was noisy, more so than the 6870.

Went to a GTX 570 Windforce 3, with vapour chamber, as many claimed it was whisper quiet whilst gaming. That thing sounded like a jet engine under load - idled at 40-45C 40% fan speed, never went much above 70C on load but the three fans were so noisy as they rose above 55%. Very aggressive fan profile.

Finally found a Sapphire 6970 dual fan edition that was reasonably quiet for a top performing card. By quiet I mean not annoying when gaming without headphones. Sapphire always seem to have good fan profiles and relatively quiet designs.

Is it just my crappy case I have sitting on a desk beside me, or are many cards above 150watt just noisy under heavy gaming and most are used to it?

I guess the 28nm cards may be what I'm looking for. Or water setup.

 

[BrightCandle]

There is no magical way to improve the noise profile. Bar small margins of difference a given surface area can only cool a certain amount at a given air speed. You can design the heatsink to be a bit more optimal for low or high speeds but in the end high thermal output has to equal fast fans or a really big radiator.

This is one of the reasons water cooling is good. Very quiet is achievable even with top end heater cards because you can choose to spread the heat over a larger area and use lower speed fans. If quiet is what you want along with top end performance I can help out work what you would need, but its unlikely to be cheap. If you stay on air you have to trade off performance to noise.

 

[lehtv]

Have you tried creating a custom fan profile with MSI Afterburner or Asus GPU Tweak? Temperatures with modern nonreference cards are typically very good, usually you can easily afford a 10C increase in load temperatures, unless you're overclocking the card heavily. In return you get much lower noise levels than with the stock fan profile.

 

[Sunny129]

I've bought the last few cards based on reviews mentioning just how good the coolers are and how quiet they are under load...

...The thing is, they never seem accurate! I guess it's because of case airflow, case size and build material, positioning (desk or floor) and subjective opinion. Plus they bench in open systems. However, what a review seems to deem quiet I certainly don't.

i'm right there with you on this one...i'm a quiet freak AND i participate heavily in distributed computing, so finding a good balance between great cooling and low noise output is especially tricky for me, particularly b/c i stick to air cooling (i like to avoid the complications and the high price of a top-shelf water cooling system).

I bought a 6870 Twin Forza III and whilst it was quiet idle (as nearly all cards are), it was very noisy under load when playing intensive games.

Switched to a Gigabyte 560 Ti, that too was noisy, more so than the 6870.

Went to a GTX 570 Windforce 3, with vapour chamber, as many claimed it was whisper quiet whilst gaming. That thing sounded like a jet engine under load - idled at 40-45C 40% fan speed, never went much above 70C on load but the three fans were so noisy as they rose above 55%. Very aggressive fan profile.

Finally found a Sapphire 6970 dual fan edition that was reasonably quiet for a top performing card. By quiet I mean not annoying when gaming without headphones. Sapphire always seem to have good fan profiles and relatively quiet designs.

the problem w/ the Twin Frozr/Hawk-style coolers is that they're only great from a cooling standpoint, and they provide absolutely no compromise. so they have to be running relatively high rpms in order to achieve their "great" cooling characteristics, and at that point, they sound like leaf blowers. of course the other downside to this is the fact that they hardly dissipate any heat when the fans are set to a low rpm.

my experience w/ GIGABYTE's WindForce coolers is quite opposite of what you experienced however. i've experienced quite a few multi-fan non-reference GPU coolers, and of all the OE non-reference coolers out there, i always felt that the WindForce coolers had the best balance of performance and noise. at 100% fan speed, the WindForce cooler was the least offensive noise maker i experienced (still too offensive for my liking, but then again i never had to run it at 100% in practice). and it also dissipates a generous amount of heat when the fans are spinning slow enough to be virtually silent. now granted, i'm talking about the 2-fan WindForce coolers on my GTX 560 Ti's. but i would think that the 3-fan WinForce coolers would actually be quieter, seeing as how it uses the same 92mm fans that my 2-fan WindForce coolers use (and hence in theory should move more air and cool better at the same fan speed as my 2-fan WindForce coolers). obviously you can attest to the GTX 570 WindForce 3's cooling ability, but your main limitation is probably that compact case. if it were larger and moved more air, the GTX 570's fan speed probably could have been significantly lower than 55% and still maintained decent temps.

anyways, in answer to your question, no - not all 150W+ GPUs have loud coolers. but external factors (such as a small case that doesn't move air too well, and consequently makes the GPU's fans work harder and louder to maintain a certain temperature) can certainly make a "relatively" quiet GPU seem loud at times. as an alternative, you might want to try what Lehtv suggested, and just set a custom fan profile using MSI Afterburner. it doesn't even have to be complex - i would just start by setting fan speed at a target speed that results in a GPU quiet enough for your liking, and then monitor your temps to see how high they go during normal GPU usage. you might just find that the GPU's fans can be run slow enough that the noise doesn't bother you AND the GPUs remain sufficiently cooled.

 

[spinejam]

The Asus DCII cards (7970x4 / 670x3) that I have owned are the most quiet that I have come across. They have a very soothing hum even if you manually ramp-up to 100% -- not obnoxious at all.

 

[Deanodarlo]

Thanks for the replies everyone, a lot of good points.

You are right of course, only one way to cool a card with over 150W of heat as air, fans and heatsinks can only do so much.

I think a large part of it is my case being on my desk (due to dog hair and dust) right close to my monitor, the case being a small ATX case and it's not very sound proof with side vents. I just think modern reviews really don't seem to fit with reality. They show a metre right next to the fans and to me they are all louder than a GTX 280, but perhaps it's lack of space in my case as a GTX 280 expels all heat out of the back while these newer cards all dump heat in the case.

If I had a massive case on the floor under a desk I bet I would hear the cards a lot less. I have tried MSI Afterburner and it is essential for these power beast cards - does help a lot.

I think I'll have to go water eventually. The Asus cards are interesting - I've heard some models limit the cards to 1600rpm, at the explense of a three slot cooler!

The 560 Ti I had was the SOC (super over clock), with the older style fans and 950 core. So that might explain the extra noise!

Not sure what's going on with the GTX 570 Windforce 3. Read really good things about that compared to standard cards. The card is a 220W part and although the vapour chamber is large, the heatsink and pipes on the Rev 2.0 card look a bit puny especially compared to a Sapphire 6970 dual fan. As soon as it goes under load those three fans really take off! Heasink looks like it's attached fine, and judging by the heat coming off the card I'm sure it's working fine.

Water or bigger sound proof case is the way forward I think, with a little Afterburner fan profiling.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Most videocards, including aftermarket dual fan design are going to sound noisy if all you have is 900rpm fans in your case. The dual fan idea is good, but the implementation is often extremely poor with not enough fin area to provide good cooling. You best bet is to get nVidia card and do "the mod", or get AMD card and dremel Accelero S1 to fit it (you're still going to be losing 2 slots though).

Here's an example:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=64924

 

[RussianSensation]

I have a quiet compact case with three 120mm low RPM case fans, hitting about 800-900 rpm. (four including PSU).

Do you have good case airflow though? Having fans in a case doesn't mean much if they can't draw cooler air from the environment (i.e., if the case is closed behind doors in a cabinet under a desk).

To show you how much case airflow really matters, please see this thread for details and the OP who asked a question in this thread's experience after he bought a new case.

Every videocard you listed should be quiet in an environment with sufficient airflow.

You could also buy a noise dampening kit such as this one to help.

That fact that you had lower noise levels with a GTX280 blower and that your Windforce card idled at 45*C is 100% proof that your case has awful airflow. Reference blowers sound quieter in situations where the after-market card that dumps the heat back into the case is not getting any proper airflow, but is instead soaking in its own heat. Instead of going water, you can just buy a new case with 2x 120 mm intake fans, top 230mm exhaust fan etc.

 

[Isura]

Sapphire has good cooling designs. I have the 7850 and it is very quite. I don't even hear the fan over my 4 case fans until it hits 50% (~2500 rpm). ALso 7000 series stays very cool. Mine doesn't go over 60% with custom fan profile.

 

[SolMiester]

I had a 580 wind force in a raven 3 case and I couldn't hear it under load....perhaps the case airflow isn't extracting the heat and therefore the card ramps up the spin to keep it cool....

 

[NTMBK]

Considered going for a passive card? Sapphire do a passive HD 7750, so pretty good performance with zero fan noise.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Considered going for a passive card? Sapphire do a passive HD 7750, so pretty good performance with zero fan noise.

Please note they aint actually passive. They require airflow from CPU, case etc. Not to mention they are sometimes clocked lower as well.

 

[railven]

I'd definitely say it's your case on the desk. My GF and I had the same case, with my rig using more power and thus creating more heat. However, when I sat at her desk I could clearly hear her PC where as at my desk I couldn't hear mine even though I had more fans.

She had her case on her desk (behind her monitor) due to a shorting issue whenever a cat walked by it. The distance difference was perhaps 1ft to 2ft (my case on the floor versus her case on the desk, relative to where my head would be when sitting at each desk.) It mad a huge difference when we put her case back on the floor and then I realize how whisper quiet her rig was versus mine.

We have 3 long hair cats and they shed like you wouldn't imagine. While I don't get dust into my rig, I'm constantly cleaning out the cat fur from the fan grilles.

Her case - is COVERED in cat hair. To the point where I get disgusted and clean it out haha, yet she still has zero cat hair in the case. Get some good dust covers and you shouldn't have issues on the inside, but just be mindful and clean them on the outside.

 

[IlllI]

need to make a custom fan profile. my dcuII was only slightly, and i mean slightly audible sitting next to me from 2ft away. this was in an open case and no audio. when playing games, or anything with sound really, you wont hear a thing.