Fan Speed & Noise

All fan speeds are handled automatically by the ATI drivers, unless you are using the custom settings in ATITool. I was surprised to see that the fan didn't change from idle speed until after the 3DMark Benchmark had nearly completed and with temperatures reaching 65°C, only then did it raise the fan speed up to 31.8%. It would be nice to have a fan speed selection under the Overdrive section in ATI Catalyst.



Just how loud is the heatsink / fan on a X1900XT? I measured the noise level of the Diamond Viper X1900XT from the back of the system measuring a 1' (30.4 cm) away.


Relatively speaking 59 dbA is loud for a heatsink/fan and at 100% the noise can be irritating. If it sounds like your neighbor is cutting his grass then at 60 dbA is what that level of sound compares too. That may explain why the ATI driver is slow to respond to the temperature rise, an effort to balance the lawn mower level.

• 60 dBA Noisy lawn mower at 10 m distance
• 55 dBA Low volume of radio or TV at 1 m distance, noisy vacuum cleaner at 10 m distance
• 50 dBA Refrigerator at 1 m distance, bird twitter outside at 15 m distance
• 45 dBA Normal live noise, talking, or radio in the background
• 35 dBA Very low room fan at low speed at 1 m distance
• 25 dBA Breathing noise at 1 m distance
• 0 dBA Auditory threshold