Japanese OEM gaming PC builder Sycom addressed the biggest shortcoming of reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X - heat (which runs into a thermal throttle too often), and the resulting noise (rivaling that of a Radeon R9 290X reference)
While I agree the NVTTM cooler may have reached the end of the line, I wonder if you have actually been able to hear the card at full load to make such a statement.
I own an XFX 290X that came with the reference cooler and once it hit 94 degrees the noise levels were much higher in both intensity and pitch when compared to what I get from my Titan-X, even at full load.
Not only that but even after heavy benchmarking and gaming, the throttling isn't nearly as bad as what I got from my 290X before I installed an AIO cooler to it. In fact, I've never seen the Titan-X throttle lower than the advertised base clock (1127MHz for this model in particular) whereas my 290X would go often go into the 700MHz range after heavy gaming.
But don't take my word for it:
Much like GTX Titan X’s power profile, GTX Titan X’s noise profile almost perfectly mirrors the GTX 780 Ti. With the card hitting 51.3dB(A) under Crysis 3 and 52.4dB(A) under FurMark, it is respectively only 0.4dB and 0.1dB off from the GTX 780 Ti. From a practical perspective what this means is that the GTX Titan X isn’t quite the hushed card that was the GTX 980 – nor with a 250W TDP would we expect it to be – but for its chart-topping gaming performance it delivers some very impressive acoustics. The Titan cooler continues to serve NVIDIA well, allowing them to dissipate 250W in a blower without making a lot of noise in the process.
Overall then, from a power/temp/noise perspective the GTX Titan X is every bit as impressive as the original GTX Titan and its GTX 780 Ti sibling. Thanks to the Maxwell architecture and Titan cooler, NVIDIA has been able to deliver a 50% increase in gaming performance over the GTX 780 Ti without an increase in power consumption or noise, leading to NVIDIA once again delivering a flagship video card that can top the performance charts without unnecessarily sacrificing power consumption or noise.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9059/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-x-review/16
Noise levels aren't nearly as close to those of the reference 290X card (dB scale is logarithmic)
The following table summarizes the situation a little differently. First, we ascertain fan speed in a closed case. That value is then dialed in manually on an open test bench. This way, we get around the fact that you just can’t measure a graphics card on its own in a closed case with the rest of the system running.
Open Case (Test Bench)Open Case (Fixed RPM, Case Simulation)Closed Case (Full System)
Idle31.2 dB(A)N/AN/A
Gaming Loop44.2 db(A)44.5 dB(A)39.7 dB(A)
Apart from the fact that GeForce Titan X can’t hold its maximum GPU Boost frequency over prolonged periods of time, Nvidia’s reference cooler is still the benchmark that all other direct heat exhaust (DHE) coolers are measured against.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-x-gm200-maxwell,4091-6.html
From the review posted here at TPU:
Compare it to this:
As for the heavy throttling, this was just a very short run, but the card never goes under 1127MHz base clock while under load:
And yes, like I said, GM200 screams for a water cooling setup, but the reference cooler isn't as bad as some people think, I hope this clears that up
