Temperatures

Thermal Analysis

For this test, we first let the card sit idle to reach thermal equilibrium. Next, we start a constant 100% gaming load, recording several important parameters while the test is running. This shows you the thermal behavior of the card and how the fans ramp up as temperatures increase. Once temperatures are stable (no increase for two minutes), we stop the load and record how the card cools down over time.



We also ran the same test for the "quiet" BIOS:

Fan Noise

Virtually all modern graphics card support idle-fan-stop, the ASUS RTX 4060 Ti M.2 SSD is an exception (on default BIOS).
With the default (performance) mode BIOS active, the fans will always spin at a minimum speed, to ensure that there's sufficient cooling for the M.2 SSD, even when the GPU is not loaded.

This does make sense, because the graphics card has no way to monitor the temperature of the SSD, and will control the fan based on the GPU temperature only. When the card is idle, its fan speed will go down to 30%, which results in a noise level of 24.7 dBA, which is virtually inaudible, even in a quiet room.

Should you still wish for less noise, then you can activate the "quiet" BIOS, which turns on fan stop. I tested with a Gen 5 SSD, and even with the fans stopped, the SSD will not overheat (this might depend on ventilation in-case though).