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.

Please note that we achieved these noise levels using an updated BIOS provided by ASUS which will be available on their support site soon.

When compared to the AMD HD 5970, the noise levels are very similar, for a human listener identical I would say. In idle the card is reasonably quiet, but changes fan speed quickly as soon as some load is put on the card. Under load the fan remains quieter than NVIDIA's single GPU GeForce GTX 480, but the noise levels are just too much for a quiet and pleasant gaming experience. What is also noteworthy is that the fan speed follows GPU temperature changes nearly instantly which makes it more obvious.