Thoughts on quiet video cards

[f1sherman]

ah, right... so basically you are moving size-restricted heatsink to a place where it can be made bigger, hence requiring less air-flow (fans/noise)

But take Arctic Extreme with its 3 fans, and already huuuge heatsink.
Are wc radiators even bigger?
Is an average water-cooled setup quieter than ACIV on 200-250W GPU?

EDIT: hmm... OK found it 🙂

 

[Wall Street]

Do you have an Arctic cooler? I have an Arctic cooling twin turbo right here. The fans are definitely not 120 mm diameter, they are 92 mm at best. 120 mm fans cover 70% more area than 92 mm fans. Looking at the side profile of the fans, normal case fans are 25 mm thick, while the Arctic cooling fans are only about half of that thickness, which again reduces airflow. Looking at the heatsink fins on an accelero cooler, then are much much thinner than what you would find on a water cooling radiator or even on a CPU heatsink in order to make the card still take only 3 PCI-E slots.

 

[f1sherman]

No, I don't have AC. But I have a hunch that ACIV might beat an average(whatever that means lol) water setup in noise department.

Yes, fans are 92mm and certainly have lower profile than 25mm. But also keep in mind that higher profile ~ more airflow ~ more noise.

Then again higher profile fans can be made to spin at lower rpm, and should have same airflow at lower speed and with less noise, right?
OK I'm convinced; thicker fan= generally quieter

 

[mikeymikec]

I'm quite fussy about computer noise levels. The 750Ti was a massive improvement on my Gigabyte 5770 (and saying "x, y and z brands are quiet" isn't helpful, my 5770 went to 5000RPM when gaming). So far I've seen my 750Ti's fan go from just over 1K RPM to about 1.3K RPM IIRC, so it's slightly noisier when gaming, but I don't have to do anything like turn the sound up to drown out the noise from the computer.

FWIW, my 750Ti is an ASUS one.

NB - I live in the UK, it's generally mild enough here so that AC isn't a requirement.

 

[Wall Street]

I'm quite fussy about computer noise levels. The 750Ti was a massive improvement on my Gigabyte 5770 (and saying "x, y and z brands are quiet" isn't helpful, my 5770 went to 5000RPM when gaming). So far I've seen my 750Ti's fan go from just over 1K RPM to about 1.3K RPM IIRC, so it's slightly noisier when gaming, but I don't have to do anything like turn the sound up to drown out the noise from the computer.

FWIW, my 750Ti is an ASUS one.

NB - I live in the UK, it's generally mild enough here so that AC isn't a requirement.

If you have a fan going over 1k RPM, I doubt you are that fussy about noise levels. I don't have a single fan in my case above 700 RPM at idle. I can hear the HDD access noise on my 7200 RPM HDD. There are people over at SPCR forums who would think my PC is way way too loud.

 

[Cerb]

What's the deal with Water Cooling anyway?
Why wc setup, pump+fans can be near silent, yet classic GPU cooling can't?

Space and compatibility. Water cooling loops allow you move the heat exchange away from the card itself. You're going to need 3-5 of your slots (maybe 6, depending on other details), instead of the stock 2, for good air cooling of a video card. And sometimes, that still doesn't treat the MOSFETs well. With WC, you can have that happen elsewhere; and if you like, increase the surface area.

But, it will cost you. You can get an MK-26, Icy Vision, or Dracula, plus your own quiet fans, for $100, give or take. A good quiet water pump will cost you at least that much, all by itself.

 

[Blue_Max]

I hated my water cooler! Instead of a low whir of a fan it was a high-pitched buzzing!

Quiet but intolerable.

 

[weevilone]

I have a pair of reference 980's in a quiet case and I can just barely hear air moving at load.

 

[mikeymikec]

If you have a fan going over 1k RPM, I doubt you are that fussy about noise levels. I don't have a single fan in my case above 700 RPM at idle. I can hear the HDD access noise on my 7200 RPM HDD. There are people over at SPCR forums who would think my PC is way way too loud.

I suspect that if there are bats who are so inclined, they'd complain about the noise level from the computers of those from the SPCR forums... what's your point?

I very much doubt that a current high-end graphics card could be silent under load anyway (unless one has some serious money to burn on noise reduction), at which point you're probably going to hear noise levels similar to a 1K RPM fan.

I've worked for quite a while on my setup to reduce the noise level (and I noticed a difference when swapping a chassis fan out that did 800-1000RPM for one that does about 600-700), and while it isn't silent, the sound overall is quite unobtrusive. Tolerance for noise levels is relative anyway.