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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 Refridgerator
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 Gigabyte R9 290X OC Windforce is very quiet, due to the non aggressive fan profile that Gigabyte have set up. All three fans only spin around 2,200 rpm when under gaming load. The Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X OC Edition may hold a lower temperature, around 68c under load, but the noise levels are higher.
Well about time there were a few more cards out. this one looks good, bit expensive, but all these cards are. Have you reviewed their 290? can you mod it to 290x? :p
Gigabyte cards get overlooked quite often, but its good to see the partners have taken their time to get them out at a high level, its the reason why a lot of people didn’t buy the reference 290. shoddy cooler.
Thats a great card, id love a review of the 290 myself, 290x is too much for me. Are you going to review it?
Good review, although I don’t agree, I think the GTX780ti is GREAT value, they start now at £550, and id pay £70 more for one over a 290x.
I hate this site, you do it all the time. review a product WE CAN”T FU*(ING BUY anywhere. its only on preorder on OCUK. whats the point of that? still not out yet, good job AMD. bunch of losers.
wish I could afford a 30 inch 4k screen, but its a bit off before they are affordable. 280X is the best bet if you want AMD, but I might move to Nvidia next gen later this year.
To the author of this review: Guru3D also did a review of this card, and the temperatures on Quiet mode was 84C, roughly equal to your results, and Uber’s max temps was at 77C. The noise levels are also a few dB higher on Uber mode. Could you verify that you actually recorded the temps in Uber mode?
Hi Hmmm,
Sorry – not seen that review
What were the benchmarks when the card was in ‘Uber’?
I had one of these….OCUK had 10 cards in just before Christmas and I managed to snatch one.
I hope other peoples experiences are better than mine…I ran a couple of game benchmarks at out of the box settings but it crashed a couple pf times running metro last light benchmark and would not boot up there after when the amd driver (13.12) was installed….RMA’ed but now waiting for more stock due 17/01.
I’m seriously considering switching my order to a 780ti….its just the promise of what “mantle” and “freesync” may bring is holding me there atm.
Really excited about this card. Was lucky enough to get the 290X BF4 version for ‘only’ 417 euro! (which converts to 346 pound).