Fan Noise

In the past years users would accept everything just to get more performance. Nowadays this has changed with people being more aware of the fan noise and power consumption of their graphic cards.
In order to properly test the fan noise a card emits we are using a Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound level meter (~$4,000) which has the measurement range and accuracy we are looking for.


The tested graphics card is installed in a system that is completely passively cooled. That is passive PSU, passive CPU cooler, passive cooling on the motherboard and Solid-State HDD.
This setup allows us to eliminate secondary noise sources and test only the video card. To be more compliant with standards like DIN 45635 (we are not claiming to be fully DIN 45635 certified) the measurement is conducted at 100 cm distance and 160 cm over the floor. The ambient background noise level in the room is well below 20 dbA for all measurements. Please note that the dbA scale is not linear, it is logarithmic. 40 dbA is not twice as loud as 20 dbA. A 3 dbA increase results in double the sound pressure. The human hearing is a bit different and it is generally accepted that a 10 dbA increase doubles the perceived sound level.

If you read our other GeForce GTX 460 reviews today you will have noticed that NVIDIA's reference design cooler is very quiet. So I was worried a bit that MSI might have increased the noise by going with a different thermal solution. Luckily this is not the case in idle, here the card is considerably quieter than the NVIDIA reference design. Under load the MSI card is a bit noisier - by roughly the same amount it is quieter in idle. So if you spend most of the day in idle, the MSI card would be the better choice to reduce fan noise. During gaming you will already have an increased amount of fan noise, so it may not make that much of a difference to have a bit more.