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
When idle, the Nvidia reference cooler hovers around 1,100 rpm, emitting a very low level of noise. When gaming, the fan speed increases to around 2,000 rpm, generating around 34.6 dBa of noise. The pitch of the Nvidia reference fan is much less annoying than the AMD counterpart on their reference coolers.
The GTX 780 Ti is generally quite quiet, much like the reference cooled GTX 780 and GTX Titan. This is an excellent reference cooler.
Absolutely mega – love it ! thanks!
Yeah this is awesome – well impressed myself, but the price is painful. Ah well – plenty of GTX780 non TI bargains right now for close to £400.
I can’t wait to see what MSI do with this one – Lightning FTW!
Ultimate setup? the Kitguru test rig with two GTX780 TI’s and that ASUS monitor. time to start saving. lol.
Best review of the Ti today, took me a long time to read it all. im ordering one today, just need to get the best deal !
They do make good reference coolers – ive read on forums that people say they suck, but I still have a reference GTX780 from ages ago and I had hardly hear it in my case. this is just mega, but ill have to pass until January. Christmas coming up, need to buy presents!
Well this came out of nowhere, I didnt know Nvidia were making so many changes to the shaders/TMUs etc. I think this has to be the limit of this generation of hardware, but its phenomenal. next year I think Nvidia will get Ultra HD 4k smooth at 60fps in most titles at high IQ. next gen.
Or two 780 Ti’s!
I think the R9 290 is the besdt value for money card right now by a long shot. But, and its a big but – I dont want the reference cooler.
I have posted on many forums, such as Sapphire’s asking for release dates of toxic editions etc, but no one is answering. GTX780 Ti is too much money, even though it is clearly the new leader. I want the R9 290 but without the shitty cooling system 🙁 a lot of people are waiting AMD so get your finger out.
Just ordered two for my new rig – great review and very honest.