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We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.
We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa.
Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
The Asus Strix cooler is very quiet, barely audible, even when tasked with Furmark. When gaming, a single chassis fan is likely to drown out the slow spinning fans. The Maxwell architecture pays dividends when it comes to cooling demands.
Have been in the market for a R9 280x for the past several months…
After reading this review, whelp, I’m sold; Asus 970 Strix it is.
Dude no go for the MSI 4G it performs better and is £20 cheaper in the UK been doing a ton of research this morning. Also be have managed overclocks of 1502 ON THE BASE CLOCK. Without much effort. 1400 WITHOUT ADJUSTING VOLTAGES o_o
The MSI is 2fps faster, sorry but i’d rather have a better cooler who stays silent until the card reaches 60° and oc it myself if i need to. Even a 50mhz boost, which is nothing, is more than enough to get more than those 2fps. MSI solutions remains fantastic though, you can’t really go wrong with both of them.
True but the MSI one also stays incredibly cool, some reviewers go tit to 1567 with no voltage increase and does not go above 65c. That is damn impressive. The MSI cooler is also really well designed to be fair.
MSI disable fans under 50C as well…
http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/msi-gtx-970-gaming-4g-review/22/
Link?
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-msi-gtx-970-gaming-twin-frozr-5-pcie-30-%28×16%29-7010-mhz-gddr5-gpu-1140-mhz-cores-1664-dp-dvi-hdmi
I actually got mine £5 cheaper from them, they just upped their price.
Hello people Kitguru, you have an error in the selection list, says MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G
instead of ASUS Strix GTX 970. Please fix that, thanks!
Thanks!
Hey Kitguru, I am wondering what your opinion on the different partner cooling solutions is. TwinFrozr (MSI), Windforce (Gigabyte), ACX (eVGA), and Strix (?, ASUS) – all seem to be formidable choices. I am personally a fan of the Gigabyte Windforce one, but what about the other selections? How do they compare?
So just to be sure, I should definitely look into MSI cards if I want to build a silent system right?
Not really ASUS are also silent, but this MSI card is insanely silent I am amazed and it is cheaper. to it with a bit of an OC max temp of 70 and it is silent. Nothign wrong with ASUS. I like them a lot but MSI are also solid, and this is £20 cheaper so no brainer for me.
Gotcha. What if I wanted to buy a relatively silent gpu in the $150-200 range? Would you recommend ASUS and MSI for their silence (even at the price range)?
Hard one would need to do your research on that front. Thing is the 900 Series seems to be the quietest of them all due to the lower power consumptions fans turning off below 60c etc. Silence in that range may not be achievable. Would have to look back at the 700 series to try and find a quiet solution.
I wonder If this type of system fan doesnt die through the years, all those constant changes from 0 to X rpms makes me wonder, thats my only concern about this card. Even if MSI is faster and more silent I wouldnt go with them. Asus has better quality components all the way. Comes to my mind the cheap ass mosfets that MSI use in their 970 Gaming mobos, so NO MSI. This is a must have as Kit Guru says. Bad thing is al re-sellers here in Latín America are gonna raise the price of this model for a while. Greedy basterds…