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 Jetstream cooler delivers excellent results when left on the automatic fan profiling system. The GTX780 rates the loudest, although within a good chassis it will be virtually inaudible above several case fans.
that 780 looks like gigabyte windforce card you reviewed last week? – looks good mind you. but a rip off?
I have a Palit GTX650Ti, I personally would go with them again.
Great review. And finally, a review that actually turns TressFX on even when using Nvidia GPUs. I wish all reviews did this. Good job Kitguru.
I’ve noticed the 4GB variant of the Palit GTX 770 Jetstream performs worse compared to their GTX 780 and GTX 760 in terms of cooling. I think it’s mainly because of the fins, they’re running the length of the card while using 3 fans. There’s probably some turbulence going on there which lessens the effectiveness of the cooler to expel heat. However, their 2GB GTX 770 Jetstream has the same cooler design of this GTX 780 right here so it’s gonna perform marginally better.