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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 single fan on the Sapphire HD7790 2GB OC is configured with a very non aggressive profile. When gaming, we documented rotational speeds around 1,300 rpm. Under Furmark load, the fan increased a little higher to around 1,500 rpm. When idle, the fan spins at around 900-1,000 rpm.
Who makes the pricing of these things up? surely thats not going to sell based on 7850 price. still, good card, I hope MORE manufacturers start using backplates to cool memory and protect them. they are also much stiffer in the slot and dont warp.
Great looking board, but HD7790 are too expensive. HD7850 is much better buy now, they dropped from 160 to 140 ish recently, meaning HD7790 is too expensive.