I know there are test batches comparing noise levels of VGAs but they're extremely limited - it's all very variable and uniform testing methods for noise levels have never really materialized, so you can't compare different test sets side by side. So: what cards and/or OEM coolers are notably quiet, quieter than average, in your personal experience? The only one I've noticed myself was an EVGA GTX 770 we put in a guy's machine at work, the single-fan rear-evacuating version. We thought, because it was the older single-fan rear-evac design, that it'd be horribly noisy, but it was whisper quiet even under full load. I was blown away, having owned single-fan rear-evac cards from earlier generations that were like hair dryers under heavy load. I don't know if this was to the credit of the GTX 770 or to EVGA coolers. Be interested to see if anyone speaks in defense of the 7950/7970s, as some people claimed at the time that they were very noisy while others said they were fine. I'm also wondering how people find dual-fan open coolers, which are prevalent now, because I suspect they depend a lot on your case design and ventilation. I have a dual-fan open GTX 670, an ASUS DCII one: and it's pretty quiet, but it's also got direct airflow through the underside of the case, so. To be honest, this is my second ASUS DCII-cooled card, and I'm a bit underwhelmed by them given all the hype. They're not the quietest cards I've owned and certainly not the quietest I've worked with, even if they do perform well enough. I suspect a lot of the hype might be because they're so pretty (the main reason I keep buying them ) (Dishonourable mention to the HD 4870, which was the hottest, loudest card I've owned.)
The EVGA GTX970 with the ACX 2.0 cooler is really quite. Well.. actually... it's not especially quiet in itself, it's that it rarely spins up past 45%, even when benching it. If you manually spin up the fans it's quite loud, but you just never here them in ordinary use. The fans don't even work below 60 degrees.. below that it's passive. [edit] In fact.. just given it a good hammering with Furmark and it never went past 25% fan speed. Normal desktop use... passive. Benching... No audible difference between the two... or if there is, it's way below the noise from the Corsair 650D fans.. which are really quite quiet. Edit again... that first "idle" screenshot was actually taken AFTER the benching... Just left it alone for 15 minutes while I make breakfast, and came back to this... Amazing cooler. I think the 650D helps me too... great case.
I think with 970's the power reduction helps a lot with keeping the noise down. when you consider the coolers used are similar to ones that are designed to cope with 100+ more watts. Got to say I do love the Asus 780 DCUII with the 10mm heatpipe and downwards blowing fan. My whole PC is so quiet I can't tell if it's on or off when I wake up in the morning. It does ramp up slightly when gaming but it's far from annoying and keeps everything below 75c when overclocked.
My past Gigabyte 580 x3 (the one with 3 fans) was quite quite. Also the 460 from Gigabyte I had before that was quite. both in am system using an H80 with custom quite fans. These Deep silence fans.
I second this. Similar EVGA 970 SC ACX 2.0. I can't hear it when gaming, that's with my FT02 case and 180mm case fans spinning at 300 rpm, quiet Noctua CPU fans at 450 rpm. Only downside is that it's not a 980....... my theory is that with FPS limit or Vsync, the 980 will not need to work as hard => even quieter card?
Not according to Gainward's specification, it has two fans. http://www.gainward.com/main/product/vga/pro/p00953/p00953_datasheet_33541a6cf952533.pdf?s=855 Look at the picture at the top of the PDF and you can see them.
I was just about to paste the same link - I was very excited about the prospect of a decent passive card (until I read the Gainward spec) - the last good one I had was a Gainward 6600GT (and yes, I did burn myself on it)
My Gigabyte gtx 480soc was alarmingly quiet considering the reputation of the 480. And I didn't have a side panel on my case at the time. Not quite as quiet as the stock 480 I'd strapped a Gelid Icy Vision on though.
I bought a single fan 7950, took it back and exchanged it for a twin fan version because it was just too loud. The twin fan version was better, but not massively. I've ended fitting an Accelero Xtreme 7970 cooler (very long with 3 fans) and that keeps the noise and temperature down.
My Asus 7970 DCUII (with the giant triple slot cooler) is extremely quiet. The trade off is it's stock clock speed and that giant cooler, the two slot ASUS coolers don't seem to be as quiet.
The 970 has been mentioned a lot already, but I'll mention it too. I've got the MSI 4G model, it's literally silent most of the time as the fan is at 0 RPM unless it goes above 60 degrees, which it doesn't do in most games. I can't comment on the fan noise when it's on, but it must be pretty quiet as I've not actually noticed it.
Which one is that? They seem come with two different dual-fan variants as well as a blower style. I was just researching 970s today and apparently the ASUS Strix one has the semi-passive feature as well, pretty neat.
This EVGA 750TI SC 2GB I have (the mini version) - hasnt even had the fans kick in once yet during gaming - no idea how the boost would affect that though.
As reviewed here on bit: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2014/09/19/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-review/4
