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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 Tri-X cooler is audible under gaming load, but it isn't intrusive thanks to the clever tri fan implementation.
Ordering one, but I doubt OCUK will get them in on the 27th, will be first week in 2014 I reckon.
Good value really considering the price of GTX780 Ti, which ive seen for £650. AMD have the price right and finally the right card. two months after launch day though? what a complete fuc*ing mess they made of such a good card.
About bloody time, longest wait for a fixed 290X ever.
I have to ask, why the Titan is never overclocked in these tests ?
Great card, a little power hungry but it’s worth it looking at these results.
OC.uk actually have gigabyte R9 290X windforce in stock now….I bought one this morning….8 left.
“At the price, none”. my first time seeing it. LOL. Nice card, really. Now if only it available in my country i will definitely buy it
Well thats impressive by any stretch of the imagination. 27c cooler than AMDs part and no need to balance fan speeds against noise.
Im tempted in January now, dont think OCUK will have stock in until the new year anyway
I don’t understand whats with the fuss about the heat on R9 290/x cards. I have been using MSI OC Edition GTX 670 previously, and they run 97c most of the time while I do gaming. It’s not a big deal to me, as I understand that the cards has been designed to run hot because they eventually will with a load on them.
I can understand the noise issue ONLY if you crank up the fan settings to 100%, but that won’t be necessary. I run the card, with custom fan profie from inside MSI after burner for 55% max fan speed, the card was quite to me. Maybe because of my big case, but really, I don’t see the what’s with the fuss all about.