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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
There is no doubt that Maxwell is efficient architecture, and due to this, the fans don't have to spin that fast under load, even stopping sometimes. Noise emissions are very low, and not really noticeably louder than even the GTX750ti Strix OC under load.
How did you guys manage to not compare it to it’s bigger brother – the GTX 970 G1? How does the 960 compare to the current generation of cards? What about 960 SLI?
From the power page “This card consumes more power than the Asus GTX960 Strix OC”. I believe as you don’t show that, I like others are confused thinking you mean the 750 Stix that’s shown. Perhaps clarify by saying “from the previous article” or put it’s results in the graph.
Given that Sapphire Dual X (965 Mhz) while high out-the-box, it’s a fairly “midland” construction, especially with Gigabyte G1 pushing the envelope with 1,304 Mhz Boost (the upper 25% of what GM206 customs) and 3 fans. I thought that Sapphire 285 held up very well. Even power while gaming here appears much different than other reviews only besting the 285 by 15% (stock vs. stock). Noise and cooling given that cooler/fans and lower power, didn’t strike me as significantly distinguishing.
Seeing that R9 285’s have gotten down into the $180’s (with rebate even lower,) this for a $230… I don’t see it. Nvidia didn’t offer much in marching the $200-1080p market forward, even to the point 285’s prices seem on the rebound.
When does GTX 965 comes out? Anyone knows?