Modern video card noise: good enough for SPCR?

They make noise, too.

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lodestar
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Location: UK

Re: Modern video card noise: good enough for SPCR?

Post by lodestar » Sat Jun 18, 2011 2:02 am

Yes, I think as a rule it is more sensible to buy the card of your choice with an improved cooler fitted as standard, if possible. The other point to bear in mind is that installing a cooler like the Accelero Xtreme Plus on a standard card does not necessarily give you the same as a card pre-fitted with the same cooler. For example, KFA2 (the European brand name for Galaxy) produce a GTX 580 fitted with Accelero Xtreme Plus. It also has a substantial metal backplate which is not supplied by Artic with this cooler. The backplate helps cool the memory on the back of the card, and also stiffens it to some degree.

In some cases it is also far more economic to buy a card with a performance cooler pre-fitted. For example in the UK the standard KFA2 GTX 580 costs around £372, the Anarchy edition (Accelero Xtreme Plus) £388. The minimum fan speed on this card is also set to 25%. Certainly there is scope to lower that further with a BIOS edit. The most significant factor about this combination is that the cooler can be quiet even at load. A software set maximum limit of 30% (MSI AfterBurner) is practical, and even at that setting load temperatures maxing out in the 60s are entirely feasible.

PartEleven
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Re: Modern video card noise: good enough for SPCR?

Post by PartEleven » Sat Jun 18, 2011 5:57 am

Of course any purchasing decision is going to be made with local availability in consideration. I'm probably biased toward separate purchases because of the high availablity of products in the USA paired with frequent sales and rebate promotions. However I do have to say that getting a quite cooler still can be a crapshoot. Buying a card pre-fitting with a well known cooler like the Aceelero Xtreme Plus is a different than buying one with a custom designed cooler by the manufacturer. With the Accelero you're much more likely to find an independent and properly done review on it. Whereas with a manufacturer custom cooler you're going to have to find some review with the EXACT same card. And usually you don't get anything more than subjective comments about how "quiet" it is without any context. Is it in a noisy room to begin with? How many fans were in the system? Most gaming enthusiasts are not known for their quiet systems. My housemate for example, cannot hear his GTX 460 SLi cards at all. That's because he's got like 5+ fans spinning at 1900 rpm.

justice99
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Re: Modern video card noise: good enough for SPCR?

Post by justice99 » Sat Jun 18, 2011 6:03 am

PartEleven wrote:Of course any purchasing decision is going to be made with local availability in consideration. I'm probably biased toward separate purchases because of the high availablity of products in the USA paired with frequent sales and rebate promotions. However I do have to say that getting a quite cooler still can be a crapshoot. Buying a card pre-fitting with a well known cooler like the Aceelero Xtreme Plus is a different than buying one with a custom designed cooler by the manufacturer. With the Accelero you're much more likely to find an independent and properly done review on it. Whereas with a manufacturer custom cooler you're going to have to find some review with the EXACT same card. And usually you don't get anything more than subjective comments about how "quiet" it is without any context. Is it in a noisy room to begin with? How many fans were in the system? Most gaming enthusiasts are not known for their quiet systems. My housemate for example, cannot hear his GTX 460 SLi cards at all. That's because he's got like 5+ fans spinning at 1900 rpm.

You are completly right, almost all GTX580's review on internet say the card is quiet...

What you can do? Buy a Sparkle Calibre, or a classix GTX580 and flash the bios, if its still loud, change the stock fan...

That's what i was planing to do with my GTX460, but modding the bios solve my problem.

I will probably buy a GTX580 at the end of this year and do what i said.

jamotide
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Re: Modern video card noise: good enough for SPCR?

Post by jamotide » Sat Jun 18, 2011 12:40 pm

To answer the original question, NO, they are small airplanes inside the computer, if you read reviews and they say it is silent at 40db, you have to wonder where the f 40db is silent? At the train station maybe?
No, the only sure way is to get any card you want (preferably EVGA because of the warranty issue), mount on the cheapest big heatsink (probably S1?) and hang 1 or 2 120mm fans, you know are silent, on it to keep the memory chips and voltage regulators cool, the main GPU is really not the problem.

Right now I am running the 2500k internal graphics (now thats a silent card) and might do the above to a 560ti, but will probably wait to see what temperature improvements the new 25nm cards will bring next year.

Sunrise
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Re: Modern video card noise: good enough for SPCR?

Post by Sunrise » Sun Jun 19, 2011 5:16 am

One fairly significant problem is that no aftermarket coolers blow out of the case. I'd like to see a 4 slot cooler that blows front to back, with a large fan or two at a 90 degree angle to the card. A six slot 2kg monster for crossfire / SLI would be sweet.

Case manufacturers seem to put a lot of effort into leaving room for large coolers and good exhaust for the 95W TDP processors but mainly ignore the 300+W of heat from modern GPUs because the reference models all exhaust from the case. Even SPCR tests cases with out-blowing 4870s that are quite a bit different from what an SPCR reader would use in that they create lots of noise but leave little heat in the case.

Telstar
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Re: Modern video card noise: good enough for SPCR?

Post by Telstar » Wed Jun 22, 2011 12:42 am

lodestar wrote:The main issue I suspect is that potentially quiet coolers like the MSI TwinFrozr and the Asus DirectCU are more the result of providing greater potential for overclocking that they are about quiet computing. Gainward sell specifically quiet gaming cards, in Europe only, under the Phantom and Golden Sample model names. But in reality the only solution to quitening a card which is too noisy at idle for example is to edit the BIOS to set the minimum fan speed lower. At one time you could do this without touching the BIOS by using software like RivaTuner but this does not work on the new generation of graphics cards. Most of the functionality of RivaTuner has been absorbed into MSI's AfterBurner but (unhelpfully) this does not include the ability to set the minimum fan setting any lower. So, in the newer ranges of cards at least, a BIOS edit to reduce the minimum fan setting is the only answer but will involve the usual trade-off of lower noise against elevated graphics cards temperatures.

It would be better of course to buy a quieter card in the first place. But the problems seems to be that few reviewers ever go into great detail about what levels fan speeds are set to. Comments like 'whisper quiet at idle' can be meaningless if the card is running in a gaming case with numerous case fans whirling away. Even apparently similar twin fan coolers can work in entirely different ways depending on how the manufacturer has chosen to configure the fan settings. So with the GTX 560 non-Ti model for instance you have the Asus DirectCU with two fans idling at 1300 rpm at 18% PWM duty cycle, and the Gigabyte OC also with two fans idling at 1000 rpm at 30% duty cycle. Sure the Gigabyte seems more promising, and the large size fans even look the part. But two 100mm fans running at 1000 rpm might still be too noisy for some people. So back to the BIOS edit again....
QFT. You clearly nailed the point.

tanassi
Posts: 93
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2011 2:25 pm

Re: Modern video card noise: good enough for SPCR?

Post by tanassi » Sat Jun 25, 2011 11:48 pm

lodestar wrote:Yes, I think as a rule it is more sensible to buy the card of your choice with an improved cooler fitted as standard, if possible. The other point to bear in mind is that installing a cooler like the Accelero Xtreme Plus on a standard card does not necessarily give you the same as a card pre-fitted with the same cooler. For example, KFA2 (the European brand name for Galaxy) produce a GTX 580 fitted with Accelero Xtreme Plus. It also has a substantial metal backplate which is not supplied by Artic with this cooler. The backplate helps cool the memory on the back of the card, and also stiffens it to some degree.

In some cases it is also far more economic to buy a card with a performance cooler pre-fitted. For example in the UK the standard KFA2 GTX 580 costs around £372, the Anarchy edition (Accelero Xtreme Plus) £388. The minimum fan speed on this card is also set to 25%. Certainly there is scope to lower that further with a BIOS edit. The most significant factor about this combination is that the cooler can be quiet even at load. A software set maximum limit of 30% (MSI AfterBurner) is practical, and even at that setting load temperatures maxing out in the 60s are entirely feasible.
Yes. Ordered the kfa2 anarchy. Made the same calculation. For some reason the card is a sweet deal. 3 concerns if found googling and on newegg)
- kfa's support seems to be soso ( checking that with them atm)
- some issues with loose screws ( nothing you couldnfix yourself but still)
- some issues with fan speed % and rpm not matching ( fixable with bios flash)

Will report here how i find this card. If not pleased ill turn back to the trusty 6870 hawk once again. But id love the extra oomph 580 will give in games like witcher 2, civ 5 and daII.

Any owners here who can confirm the greatness of the card. Lodestar?

tanassi
Posts: 93
Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2011 2:25 pm

Re: Modern video card noise: good enough for SPCR?

Post by tanassi » Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:31 am

tanassi wrote:
lodestar wrote:Yes, I think as a rule it is more sensible to buy the card of your choice with an improved cooler fitted as standard, if possible. The other point to bear in mind is that installing a cooler like the Accelero Xtreme Plus on a standard card does not necessarily give you the same as a card pre-fitted with the same cooler. For example, KFA2 (the European brand name for Galaxy) produce a GTX 580 fitted with Accelero Xtreme Plus. It also has a substantial metal backplate which is not supplied by Artic with this cooler. The backplate helps cool the memory on the back of the card, and also stiffens it to some degree.

In some cases it is also far more economic to buy a card with a performance cooler pre-fitted. For example in the UK the standard KFA2 GTX 580 costs around £372, the Anarchy edition (Accelero Xtreme Plus) £388. The minimum fan speed on this card is also set to 25%. Certainly there is scope to lower that further with a BIOS edit. The most significant factor about this combination is that the cooler can be quiet even at load. A software set maximum limit of 30% (MSI AfterBurner) is practical, and even at that setting load temperatures maxing out in the 60s are entirely feasible.
Yes. Ordered the kfa2 anarchy. Made the same calculation. For some reason the card is a sweet deal. 3 concerns if found googling and on newegg)
- kfa's support seems to be soso ( checking that with them atm)
- some issues with loose screws ( nothing you couldnfix yourself but still)
- some issues with fan speed % and rpm not matching ( fixable with bios flash)

Will report here how i find this card. If not pleased ill turn back to the trusty 6870 hawk once again. But id love the extra oomph 580 will give in games like witcher 2, civ 5 and daII.

Any owners here who can confirm the greatness of the card. Lodestar?

Got an excellent reply of KFA2's support. Only 50 cards have been returned with minor issues. They responded swift and correct. A personal reply with a name, mobile number etc. How often do you see that?

Card due here end of this week. Can't wait! :))))) If it's too loud I will move to CF 6870 Hawks. Either way a big bump in performance.

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