In past years, gamers would accept everything for a little bit more performance. Nowadays, users are more aware of their graphics card's fan noise and power consumption.
In order to properly test the fan noise a card emits, we use a Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound-level meter (~$4,000). It has the measurement range and the accuracy we are looking for.
The tested graphics card is installed in a system that does not emit any noise on its own, using a passive PSU, passive CPU cooler, passive cooling on the motherboard, and a solid state drive. Noise results of other cards on this page are measurements of the respective reference design.
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 a distance of 100 cm and 160 cm off the floor. Ambient background noise inside the room was well below 20 dBA for all measurements. Please note that the dBA scale is not linear but logarithmic. 40 dBA is not twice as loud as 20 dBA, as a 6 dBA increase results in double the sound pressure. The human hearing perception is a bit different, and it is generally accepted that a 10 dBA increase doubles the perceived sound level. 3D load noise levels are tested with a stressful game, not with Furmark.
We have seen some very impressive custom-design GTX 980 cards with minimal noise levels. Several cards also stop their fans completely in idle and during light gaming, one of the most awesome cards in that regard is the ASUS GTX 980 Strix with no noise in idle and only 30 dBA under full load.
Unfortunately, ASUS has not passed its low-noise treatment on to their GTX 980 Matrix. The fans do not stop in idle and are quiet, but still noticeable. During gaming, the card is even nosier than NVIDIA's GTX 980 reference design, which is still relatively quiet, but far nosier than other GTX 980s.
My best guess is that ASUS focused on lower temperatures instead of optimized fan noise to appeal to the overclocking crowd, which this card is certainly designed for.
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