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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.
Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. 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.
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 loudest card on test was the Zotac GTX670, with the reference fan spinning up quite a bit when tasked with the synthetic Furmark load – it doesn't get this loud when gaming however. The Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X, the second fastest card in our testing was the quietest solution thanks to the excellent, capable two fan Vapor X cooler. None of the cards are excessively loud however which is a good indication of how far the current technology has progressed.
Fantastic reading thanks GTX660ti all the way for me !
I have wanted the HD7950 now for quite a while, but cant afford it. ive decided to wait until the next gen, later this year. good article, shows the good GTX660ti performance well.
Im very happy with my HD7870, will do me for some time, and when it doesn’t ill pick one up cheap to CF them,
Now this will totally affect my decision on buying a vga
GTX670 is great, but GTX660 ti is the bargain right now. I like that Sapphire card though, im sick of fan noise 🙁
Good article, very helpful as im thinking of buying one for my new system soon.
Greg, you might want to look at the Asus Direct CUII version of the GTX660Ti – I got one recently to replace a Gainward GTX260GS and the reduction in fan noise is astonishing.
I agree with Andrew. Even though the Gainward GFX cards are very durable, but if you want high quality Nvidia cards that are also silent you should look at the ASUS cards with the Direct CUII cooling solution. It’s really no comparison.
Kitguru said: “Today’s article won’t be featuring the AMD HD7970, HD7990 or Nvidia GTX680 or GTX 690/Titan. Not because we don’t like them, but because very few people can afford to buy them.”
This seems very disingenuous. There’s hardly any difference between the avg. 670 and 7970 prices. Does put nVidia at the top of the charts with the O/C’d 670 though. :
Well its not meant to be disingenuous. the GTX680 is the flagship to battle against the HD7970. If we included the HD7970 then we would need to include the GTX680, sometimes seen for £350.
The point was to try and get a variety of cards and not focus on the flagship single GPU cards.
Bear in mind the GTX670 didn’t get a top award in this test, due to the pricing. The Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X did due to cost, cooling, noise etc.