We take our noise measurements with the sound meter positioned 1 foot from the graphics card. I measured the noise floor to be 32 dBA, thus anything above this level can be attributed to the graphics cards. The power supply is passive for the entire power output range we tested all graphics cards in, while all CPU and system fans were disabled. A reading under load comes from running Cyberpunk 2077 for 30 minutes for 30 minutes.
Those out of the box thermal results don't take noise levels into the equation however, and the Gaming OC is the loudest of the 7800 XT's we've tested – including AMD's reference design. The OC BIOS hit 41dBa, with the fans spinning at 41%/1740rpm, while the Silent BIOS is quieter as its fans targeted 30%/1200rpm speeds. 41dBa is definitely a bit louder than I'd like, and is getting to the point where you would hear the GPU over your case fans. Even using the Silent BIOS it isn't as whisper-quiet as the likes of the Nitro+ or PowerColor Hellhound.