In past years, gamers would accept everything for a little 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.
It's good to see that unlike the NVIDIA Founders Edition, EVGA added the fan-stop-in-idle feature on their card, which provides the perfect noise-free experience during desktop work, Internet browsing, and light gaming.
In gaming, fan noise is good, matching the Founders Edition, but the card is not much quieter than the RTX 2080, which is probably due to the smaller and cheaper cooler. It's still a good improvement over previous-generation cards, like the GTX 1080 that use less power but end up noisier. I'm sure larger, more expensive custom designs with triple-slot cooler will achieve better noise levels.
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