GTX 260/280: Noise is the Deal Killer

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oozish

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
Messages
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Noone seems too upset about the various reviews out there that cite the high noise levels these cards produce at high utilization. Personally, for me this is a deal killer that will prevent me from buying initially and waiting until a better cooling solution is produced. I have the 9600gt with the S1 passive cooler now and don't want to go back to small vacuum sounds spinning up during games.

I guess we won't know how bad it is till more users actually own one, but from the reviews it sounds very bad.

What say you? :D
 
HardOCP_Review said:
We noticed that the fan speed on the BFGTech video card increased as the heat demand required it. While sitting in Age of Conan in deep grass where GPU activity and power drain increased the fan spun up to keep the GPU cool. When it spun up to its full speed it was quite noticeable in our open air system setup. Thankfully it wasn’t an annoying noise, it just sounded like air moving. Otherwise, for light gaming the video card is silent
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Didn't sound like a problem to me.
 
Noise is not a deal breaker because there will be after market cooling available for those cards for sure.
 
I should know first hand later today. As long as they aren't near as loud as my old X1950 Pro was, I'll be happy.
I built a friend a system out of my old including that card and was embarrassed everytime I went over and heard that card. :eek:
 
got one last night, i may return the card beause i think there is something wrong with the fan..doesn't seem to be spinning down after gaming. at default 40% it is quiet. at 100% it is pretty loud, but is all airflow, the fan itself makes no noise. i had the GX2 and I don't think the GTX 280 is any louder than that at 100%. I had also had an 8800gtx at one point and the GX2 and GTX 280 are louder. I don't have a way to measure the decibel levels, but i don't see it as being a deal breaker. sure it is a little loud, but not that huge of a deal
 
I dont think anything will ever be as loud as my 1900xtx, so i should be fine.
 
anyone know how the 260 sound compares to 9800GTX? noise isnt a major concern for me with rivatuner throttling, but the 9800GTX at 100% is pretty loud and i dont want anything too much louder than it.
 
What I've noticed is that when running in single GPU mode, a single GTX 280 isn't that loud when running max. However, when in SLI mode, there are much louder. It's not really that bad but if you are a noise freek I could see it being a problem.
 
"Noone" isn't a word. "No one" is the correct way to spell it.

Aside from that the noise doesn't bother me. Noisy cards are hardly a deal breaker for me unless I plan on putting them in an HTPC or something.
 
Dan_D said:
"Noone" isn't a word. "No one" is the correct way to spell it.

Aside from that the noise doesn't bother me. Noisy cards are hardly a deal breaker for me unless I plan on putting them in an HTPC or something.
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I can't *stand* a noisy card... So, I buy the most powerful card I can afford, and watercool it!

A 150$ waterblock is well worth my sanity over a year of operation... That's less than 50c a day to enjoy a quiet room, or some high quality music. I pay more for socks than that.
 
I game with headphones on so I don't give a shit about noise during gaming.

Now, if it's noisy at idle, that's a different story.
 
Arcygenical said:
I can't *stand* a noisy card... So, I buy the most powerful card I can afford, and watercool it!

A 150$ waterblock is well worth my sanity over a year of operation... That's less than 50c a day to enjoy a quiet room, or some high quality music. I pay more for socks than that.
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I'm a bit curious as to where you buy your socks.
 
Dan_D said:
"Noone" isn't a word. "No one" is the correct way to spell it.

Aside from that the noise doesn't bother me. Noisy cards are hardly a deal breaker for me unless I plan on putting them in an HTPC or something.
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I hope you don't try to correct the grammar of everyone on these boards, you'll never sleep. ;)

Noise is a big deal breaker for me. I need speed and quiet in my rig, and work to optimize both. In my opinion, it's not [H] 'HARD' and have a loud system nowadays. Silence is golden, and so are 3.4 Ghz quadcore systems. The days of loud ass gaming rigs are over for me, and I build my rigs to balance speed and silence and a loud card that has trouble returning to normal fan operation at least in it's introduction according to many on these forums is not in the picture.
 
oozish said:
I hope you don't try to correct the grammar of everyone on these boards, you'll never sleep. ;)

Noise is a big deal breaker for me. I need speed and quiet in my rig, and work to optimize both. In my opinion, it's not [H] 'HARD' and have a loud system nowadays. Silence is golden, and so are 3.4 Ghz quadcore systems. The days of loud ass gaming rigs are over for me, and I build my rigs to balance speed and silence and a loud card that has trouble returning to normal fan operation at least in it's introduction according to many on these forums is not in the picture.
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One of these cards isn't loud at all. With my sig rig practiaclly in front of me while playing CoD4 with one card its just isn't that noticable. Now run both cards and there a lot more heat and I'd say its about a loud as 6" desktop fan running at low to medium speed. It is noticeable but its not what I would say is loud or distracting but far from quiet.
 
Headphones here. I do have an x1900xt and it gets noisy when first booting up, but then quiets down. Even after gaming for a long time it still quiet.
 
reminds me of my old 1900XT.
That thing got quite annoying under heavy 3D rendering.
GTX280s can't be that bad...right?
 
oozish said:
I hope you don't try to correct the grammar of everyone on these boards, you'll never sleep. ;)
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That one particular word/phrase bothers me. I ignore most other grammar issues.

oozish said:
Noise is a big deal breaker for me. I need speed and quiet in my rig, and work to optimize both. In my opinion, it's not [H] 'HARD' and have a loud system nowadays. Silence is golden, and so are 3.4 Ghz quadcore systems. The days of loud ass gaming rigs are over for me, and I build my rigs to balance speed and silence and a loud card that has trouble returning to normal fan operation at least in it's introduction according to many on these forums is not in the picture.
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Well I try to keep hardware relatively quiet but a cards' noise isn't a deal breaker for me. If its' bad I'll simply get aftermarket cooling for it.
 
god.. I spend so much time in a datacenter noise doesn't ever really effect my buying decisions.. you guys should hear the new Dell M1000e blade chassis fire up... wow! now that's loud.. :)
 
Having no problem with that, will have mine under silent and cool water anyway.
 
After using gaming laptops, fan noise is the least of my concerns. Wear some headphones if it bugs you that much.
 
At idle, they are cooler (about 10c cooler @ 40% fan speed) and make less noise than my SLI'd 8800GTX did.
While gaming, they are a little louder than my old ones. I bumped the fan speed to 100% with EVGA's Precision to see how loud. I'm glad they don't run at 100% while gaming...
 
revenant said:
god.. I spend so much time in a datacenter noise doesn't ever really effect my buying decisions.. you guys should hear the new Dell M1000e blade chassis fire up... wow! now that's loud.. :)
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Same here. I have spent quite a bit of time in data centers and as a result what I consider noisy would be flat out unbearable to most people posting in this thread complaining about video card noise.
 
i remember when i dumped my H2O cooling setup to go back to high quality Thermalright HSF anf lots of case fans......and then i remembered why i actually enjoyed hearing it hummmmmm....that lets me know everything is working properly, if it doesn't sound right, something is wrong......i personally dont care about the noise as long as it doesnt literally reach vacuum cleaner loud....
 
Dan_D said:
Same here. I have spent quite a bit of time in data centers and as a result what I consider noisy would be flat out unbearable to most people posting in this thread complaining about video card noise.
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Agree with you guys. I also work in a datacenter. I think i can handle a small fan noise.
 
I have no problems with a noisy card when playing games - I have the volume turned up and often use headphones - The sound from the game drowns out even the loudest fans.

The important thing for me is that the card shuts up when it's just displaying the Windows desktop. I use my computer for music production so this is important, but even when I'm just browsing the web, I want some peace and quiet.

I made the mistake of buying Gigabyte's Zalman-cooled 8800GT card last time I upgraded. It lacks dynamic fan speed. While it's quieter then a regular 8800GT in 3D mode, the fan remains at 100% in 2D mode which makes it much louder than any normal 8800GT card. This is far worse than a card that is noisy in 3D mode but goes quiet when you exit the game.
 
Looks like ATI's cards are running super hot as well...a shame as I got used to my passively cooled 9600gt idling around 41C and topping out around 55C under load for an hour or so. I imagine any 'noise' problems Nvidia has will be similarly replicated or worse with ATI's product as those things are getting up to 85C + no problem.

I think I'll wait for the refresh and see what becomes of the pricing and cooling design on the 280....
 
ZippZopp said:
got one last night, i may return the card beause i think there is something wrong with the fan..doesn't seem to be spinning down after gaming. at default 40% it is quiet. at 100% it is pretty loud, but is all airflow, the fan itself makes no noise. i had the GX2 and I don't think the GTX 280 is any louder than that at 100%. I had also had an 8800gtx at one point and the GX2 and GTX 280 are louder. I don't have a way to measure the decibel levels, but i don't see it as being a deal breaker. sure it is a little loud, but not that huge of a deal
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Does it sound like 7600gt? I had one of those things and it was freaking anoying as hell when you did anything 3d.
 
never had a 7600gt. i had a 7800gt which wasn't all that loud. i swapped my PNY card for the BFG and the BFG regulates its fan speed properly now....all is good.
 
The noise on the Geforce GTX 280 isn't all that bad. I've got a pair of them now and they are no worse than the 9800GX2 and in fact they are slightly better I think.
 
Dan_D said:
The noise on the Geforce GTX 280 isn't all that bad. I've got a pair of them now and they are no worse than the 9800GX2 and in fact they are slightly better I think.
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I agree that one isn't that bad, but when my two are running at max they seem a bit loud. However one of the cards is bad so maybe that made a difference. It's still not that bad. But for someone who is a noise nazi they might not be happy. What seems worse is the heat.
 
i agree, i think they are better than the 9800gx2...it does get pretty hot though
 
I use nTune to keep the fan where I want it. It only bothers me when it speeds up or slows down suddenly.
 
ZippZopp said:
i agree, i think they are better than the 9800gx2...it does get pretty hot though
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They aren't quite as hot as the 9800GX2. Sure the Geforce GTX 280 GPU might get warmer than a single 9800GX2 GPU but the 9800GX2 has two of those bastards putting out heat.
 
ZippZopp said:
never had a 7600gt. i had a 7800gt which wasn't all that loud. i swapped my PNY card for the BFG and the BFG regulates its fan speed properly now....all is good.
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Well, this IS good to hear. I've got my eye on the same card once prices start to drop and perhaps a revision/refresh of the card happens in a few months.
 
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