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.

MSI's implementation of fan control is horrible in my opinion. In idle the card is noisier than all other comparable cards - including the last-generation dual GPU GTX 295. Ok, the idle temps are like 30° but there really is no difference between 30, 40, 50, or 60° in idle. Under load the fan speed ramps up quickly to end up sounding close to a leaf blower. In the case of load, the fan speed seems more justified, as the card reaches fairly high temperatures quickly when increasing voltage and overclocking.
What is another extremely annoying "feature" is that the fan speed jumps around all over the place as soon as load changes. Usually you have a slight delay in fan speed control that gradually changes fan speed over time to make the change less obvious. MSI however seems to have removed this delay which makes the fan speed jump with the slightest change in GPU load - like starting a desktop application (in Aero).

I did ask MSI if they had any plans on adressing this, but all I got was:
"did you flash [the] new bios?". I did, which is supposed to help with memory overclocking but does not change any fan settings. "ok... then it should be fine".