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.
Idle noise levels are good; you can barely hear the card when it is installed in a case. It would be nice, though, if the card were just as quiet as the GTX Titan in idle.
During gaming, the card is certainly not quiet, but given the performance delivered, I find noise levels very reasonable. The card emits almost the same noise levels as the GTX Titan, but is a good 10% faster. When compared to AMD's R9 290 Series, the difference is huge. You can probably run two GTX 780 Tis in SLI, and they would still be quieter than a single R9 290X in uber mode.