Uhm my personal opinion is that you have buy the wrong type of GPU.

Man you have open air chassis why a blower style GPU ?

You cant imagine how silent and cooler will be a GPU with custom heatsink, MSI/Asus/Evga in open air scenario.

Im not a fan of customized heatsinks on GPU's in fact i love the blower Style much easier to find a waterblock for it if you want to go with watercooling.

AnimalpakUhm my personal opinion is that you have buy the wrong type of GPU.

Man you have open air chassis why a blower style GPU ?

You cant imagine how silent and cooler will be a GPU with custom heatsink, MSI/Asus/Evga in open air scenario.

Im not a fan of customized heatsinks on GPU's in fact i love the blower Style much easier to find a waterblock for it if you want to go with watercooling.

the most noise isn't from the gpu, it is the fans on the aoi watercooler is the most noise (even with a resistors) and next is the velorapter harddrive then gpu and lastly the chassis fan. Also being open frame, you get all sort of noise coming out but that what LAN Party makes the most noise is people chatting and what computer do stand out they like to look.
My next project is a watercooler.
And my last project (4 years ago) is silent with 8 fans (but then with sli was making a bit of noise).

Update: I have been told that noise is the quietest possible even under load the guy admitted that.