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 how much noise a card's fan emits, we use a Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound-level meter (~$4,000). It has the measurement range and 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 since 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.
ASUS decided not to implement the fan-idle-off feature that completely stops the fans when the card is running below a certain temperature while, for example, in idle, browsing the web, or light-gaming. I'm puzzled by this decision as nearly every recent NVIDIA card has that feature, which is a great selling point.
Idle-fan noise is 29 dBA, which is not unreasonable, but could definitely be improved considering idle temps are as low as 30°C, providing zero benefit over 40°C, for example.
Gaming noise is decent, quieter than some custom design GTX 980 Tis. But the card is still much noisier than the MSI GTX 980 Ti Lightning, which runs at only 29 dBA with its triple-slot cooler. What makes the Lightning's cooler even more impressive is that it's much quieter and has lower temperatures at the same time.
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