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 the fan noise a card emits, we use a Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound-level meter (~$4,000). It has the measurement range and the 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, as 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.
We have seen some very impressive custom-design GTX 980 cards with minimal noise levels. Several cards also stop their fans completely in idle and during light gaming for the perfect noise-free experience.
Unfortunately, NVIDIA has been sloppy in their implementation of the GTX 980 Ti's fan settings. The card does not stop its fan in idle or light gaming. While it is very quiet while not loaded, that's not good enough for many low-noise gamers. The same happened with the GTX Titan X, I wonder why.
During full-on gaming, the GTX 980 Ti is very audible as its noise output slightly exceeds that of the Titan X. Our Titan X sample runs its fan at 48% (=2300 RPM) and the GTX 980 Ti runs the fan at 50% (= 2380 RPM). Here the GTX 980 Ti is again too noisy, not following the trend. Sorry, this is not 2013 anymore, and NVIDIA's own fantastic efficiency improvements brought forth this age of super-quiet high-end gaming cards with such exemplary products as the ASUS GTX 980 STRIX and MSI GTX 980 Gaming; the GTX 980 Ti is not one of them. To me, it looks as though the cooler is a bit too weak to handle the heat, so NVIDIA had to turn up the fans. I do have high hopes for custom-board designs, which should definitely reduce noise levels.
I also noticed some slight coil noise at high FPS, but it's not noticeable enough to be disturbing.
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