Fan Noise

In past years, gamers would accept everything for a little bit more performance. Nowadays, users are more aware of the fan noise and the power consumption of their graphics cards.

In order to properly test the fan noise that a card emits, we use the Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound-level meter (~$4,000). It has the measurement range and the accuracy we are looking for.


The tested graphics card was installed in a system that was completely cooled system passively. That is, passive PSU, passive CPU cooler, and passive cooling on the motherboard and 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 was conducted at a distance of 100 cm and 160 cm off the floor. Ambient background noise in 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 3 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 were tested with a stressful game, not with Furmark.

Noise levels are improved a good deal over the NVIDIA reference design. It is a night and day difference compared to AMD's latest offerings; the GTX 780 Ti ACX is just so much quieter.

Under load, I did notice the two fans emitting a whine from time to time (depending on RPM), which appears to be due to air interference. Not much noisier, it is just of a higher frequency, which makes it noticeable. The noise has more of a whoosh-like quality to it once fan speeds change.

Given the low temperatures of 31°C idle and 72°C load, I think EVGA could have reduced noise levels even more, which is why I'm not perfectly happy even though results are very good.