Is the Asus GTX 260 really that quiet? Opinions wanted ...

martini1179 · Post by **martini1179** » Wed Nov 05, 2008 11:14 am

I'm interested in possibly buying an Asus ENGTX260 video card, but I'm concerned about any possibly noise. I read the article here on SPCR, but I'm having serious trouble believing that such a high-end card can get only ~17-21db under 50% load at 1 meter!

I know that "quiet" and "loud" are subjective, but I'd like to hear some anecdotal testimonials on how loud this thing gets inside a quiet case like the Antec P182.

IMPORTANT: How annoying is that damned jet-engine whine under load?

TD22057 · Post by **TD22057** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 9:40 pm

I have the EVGA Core 216 version but I'd guess they're identical since they are both just reference boards AFAIK. It's generally pretty quiet. Default fan speed on mine is 40% and it's not very noticeable at all. If I manually set it at 100% it sounds terrible - but I've been playing Fallout 3 for several hours on max settings at 1900x1200 and haven't heard the fan ramp up much at all.

Overall I'm very glad I got the 260 instead of the 4870:

- Lower idle power usage
- Expels hot air out of the case
- No need to buy an aftermarket cooler

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 1:22 am

nVidia has had record of making better stock cooliers than Ati. For example stock cooler for GF 7900 GTX... That was amazing ^^

mattyc · Post by **mattyc** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 5:23 am

I have xfx gtx260, stock fan speed is 40% (about 1400RPM) and it IS loud. I have p180 case with 5 scythe slipstream fans running at around 800-900rpm and it is very noticable above the sound of the slipstreams. I am waiting for aftermarket cooler for gtx260 but thermalright pulled their hr03gtx as it was causing overheating issues and no one else has released one yet.

Eagle156 · Post by **Eagle156** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 7:42 am

It's kind of loud by default but if you change the fan speeds (easy to do and temps don't change much) it's very quiet.

martini1179 · Post by **martini1179** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 9:24 am

I'm getting varying opinions here, which I can appreciate.

However, is anyone here talking about the ASUS GTX 260, you know, in case Asus is using a quieter cooler design than most?

vick1000 · Post by **vick1000** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 12:17 pm

All 260s use the same reference cooler, the fan settings may vary and sample variance may introduce noise, but I have not heard of any difference in performance (heat or sound) with different brands.

But be aware, there are some bad samples out there, in which the cards run extremely hot, due to some defect. But those cards are defective, and you should return one if it quickly ramps in temps to near 100c.

Also, some GTX260/280 cards have been reported as having a noise associated with the coils/ chokes, or other "hissing"/ "whinning" noises.

In a silent system, the cards will be heard without a doubt. In a quiet system, they may still be heard at default settings, but are to be considered very quiet compared to the performance level.

They do not compare to the 7900GTX level of silence, they are louder.

luggage · Post by **luggage** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 1:12 pm

TD22057 wrote:Overall I'm very glad I got the 260 instead of the 4870:

- Lower idle power usage
- Expels hot air out of the case
- No need to buy an aftermarket cooler

So does the 4870, are you thinking of the 4850?

TD22057 · Post by **TD22057** » Sun Nov 09, 2008 3:03 pm

luggage wrote:
TD22057 wrote:Overall I'm very glad I got the 260 instead of the 4870:

- Lower idle power usage
- Expels hot air out of the case
- No need to buy an aftermarket cooler
So does the 4870, are you thinking of the 4850?

No - but from what I read I would need an aftermarket cooler to keep the 4870 at a reasonable noise level (which wouldn't expel air). The 260 w/ the stock cooler is quiet enough for me so it's nice that it also expels air outside the case.

AEmer · Post by **AEmer** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:41 am

How does the noice compare to after market coolers?
I currently use zalman VF900cu that I run at 5v and was wondering if I should expect a significant increase at idle? I already have to crank it up beyond measure during performance so that's not an issue...

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:33 am

TD22057 wrote:
No - but from what I read I would need an aftermarket cooler to keep the 4870 at a reasonable noise level (which wouldn't expel air). The 260 w/ the stock cooler is quiet enough for me so it's nice that it also expels air outside the case.

If you have a properly cooled system, it shouldn't make a large difference to have a quiet internal cooler as opposed to one that exhausts directly out the pci slots.

Gordoco · Post by **Gordoco** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 10:19 am

AEmer wrote:How does the noice compare to after market coolers?
I currently use zalman VF900cu that I run at 5v and was wondering if I should expect a significant increase at idle? I already have to crank it up beyond measure during performance so that's not an issue...

I just installed the EVGA GTX 260 Core 216, replacing a 7900GT with a Zalman VF900cu. I don't notice the GTX 260 being any noisier than the 7900GT+VF900cu was at idle. My case fans are louder than the GTX fan. For those wondering if the Asus version is quieter than other brands, I doubt it. Buy whichever has the best price, preferred software bundle, brand loyalty, warranty, etc.

During gameplay (Fallout 3) so far the GTX is quiet. I have yet to hear fans ramp up during gameplay. Ambient is about 66-68F. Summer temps are hotter so I wouldn't be surprised to hear the system to be noiser during summer gaming, as it always was with the 7900GT+VF900cu.

I'm very happy - I don't believe an aftermarket VGA cooler will be necessary for my reasonably quiet (not silent) system.

johnbentley · Post by **johnbentley** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 6:07 pm

Some further useful feedback in The article discussion for "Asus ENGTX260: A Quiet Graphics Card for Gamers?"

rpsgc · Post by **rpsgc** » Wed Nov 19, 2008 1:45 am

johnbentley wrote:Some further useful feedback in The article discussion for "Asus ENGTX260: A Quiet Graphics Card for Gamers?"

We're all well aware of it, thank you

Hence the creation of this topic and its title being "is it really that quiet?" instead of "is it quiet?"

theoryzero · Post by **theoryzero** » Thu Nov 20, 2008 5:26 am

Quiet is subjective. I just got a EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 model yesterday to replace my ailing 7900GTX. The fan at stock speed is certainly the most audible part of my system, which can be heard over my non-silenced hard drives which make a whooshing sound when running.

I used the EVGA Precision Utility to underclock the core and memory and to knock the fan speed down from 40% to 30% which makes the air noise just inaudible over my hard drives. However the fan on my particular card does have a slight whine that won't go away regardless of fan speed. I'll also say that running the fan at this speed tends to warm up my system overall, the card temp is around 56C at idle when using Vista w/ Aero Glass.

Overall, love the performance in games with the new card, but do miss the lower power consumption and silence for general use from my 7900GTX. Based on what I've read on this thread there is no card from the generations between these two that are as quiet as the 7900GTX either.

vick1000 · Post by **vick1000** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 2:00 am

theoryzero wrote:Quiet is subjective. I just got a EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 model yesterday to replace my ailing 7900GTX. The fan at stock speed is certainly the most audible part of my system, which can be heard over my non-silenced hard drives which make a whooshing sound when running.

I used the EVGA Precision Utility to underclock the core and memory and to knock the fan speed down from 40% to 30% which makes the air noise just inaudible over my hard drives. However the fan on my particular card does have a slight whine that won't go away regardless of fan speed. I'll also say that running the fan at this speed tends to warm up my system overall, the card temp is around 56C at idle when using Vista w/ Aero Glass.

Overall, love the performance in games with the new card, but do miss the lower power consumption and silence for general use from my 7900GTX. Based on what I've read on this thread there is no card from the generations between these two that are as quiet as the 7900GTX either.

I would return the card, the fan should not be whining, which may be the card itself by the way.

theoryzero · Post by **theoryzero** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:09 am

vick1000 wrote:
theoryzero wrote:Quiet is subjective. I just got a EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 model yesterday to replace my ailing 7900GTX. The fan at stock speed is certainly the most audible part of my system, which can be heard over my non-silenced hard drives which make a whooshing sound when running.

I used the EVGA Precision Utility to underclock the core and memory and to knock the fan speed down from 40% to 30% which makes the air noise just inaudible over my hard drives. However the fan on my particular card does have a slight whine that won't go away regardless of fan speed. I'll also say that running the fan at this speed tends to warm up my system overall, the card temp is around 56C at idle when using Vista w/ Aero Glass.

Overall, love the performance in games with the new card, but do miss the lower power consumption and silence for general use from my 7900GTX. Based on what I've read on this thread there is no card from the generations between these two that are as quiet as the 7900GTX either.
I would return the card, the fan should not be whining, which may be the card itself by the way.

The whining has diminished after a couple evenings of gaming. I'll open up my case to see if it is still there, but now my only complaint is whoosh from the fan at stock speed.

Tzupy · Post by **Tzupy** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 6:03 am

A new article at Xbitlabs shows 29W difference (system power) between the old (192SP) and new (216SP) versions of the GTX260.
I mean the new one with 216SP runs at lower voltage and GPU is cooler.
Link to page 8: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... 024_8.html
So if someone must have a GTX260, then the new version is the one to get. Well, assuming ALL new cards behave this way.

WR304 · Post by **WR304** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 12:28 pm

Unless you can find a cheap GTX260 192 the newer GTX260 216 card seems like the one to go for. The prices here in the UK aren't very good though. When I got my Leadtek GTX260 192 a few months ago it was Â£165 incl VAT which seemed like a reasonable price. All the GTX260 cards seem to be back over Â£200 incl VAT again. When they're that sort of price the cheaper ATI HD4870 512mb looks like a better buy than either card.

If you overclock a GTX260 card there is quite a big jump in power consumption so anyone with an overclocked card is likely to find that it's noisier too. Have a look at this bit-tech.net chart comparing power consumption between some factory overclocked cards GTX 260 216 cards and a GTX260/ GTX280 at stock speeds:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/1 ... edition/10

The Xbitlabs.com temperature results for the stock GTX260 192 (see page 7 of the review Tzupy linked above) seem a bit odd. They don't match how the stock cooler on my GTX260 192 card at stock speeds responds anyway.

I replied to rpsgc's post about it here with some graphs and rivatuner log:

viewtopic.php?t=50254&start=30

.

rpsgc · Post by **rpsgc** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 2:04 am

So... by simply reducing the fan speed at idle does it make the card pretty much inaudible?

I was set on buying a HD4870 1GB and recycle my Accelero but then I saw a GTX260 216 at just 5 â‚¬ more

Negatives:

- Could be loud
- Have to cut Solo's drive cage

WR304 · Post by **WR304** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 3:11 pm

It's easy enough to change the fan speed settings using Rivatuner.

The standard 40% fan speed (1400rpm approx) is clearly noticeable over my two Scythe Slipstream 500rpm fans but the card appears to idle happily at the lower 30% fan speed. At 30% fan speed (1022rpm approx) and below the stock cooler on my GTX260 is reasonably quiet. It's no worse than an Accelero S1 and Scythe fan at 1000rpm anyway.

I'd describe 25% fan speed (807rpm approx) as very quiet. Unless you have your ear right next to it the card isn't really noticeable. 25% fan speed is a bit too slow to control the idle temperature unfortunately but if your room isn't too hot you might be able to get away with a lower idle fan speed than 30%.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 2:09 pm

thejamppa wrote:nVidia has had record of making better stock cooliers than Ati.

It also helps that its the exact same reference cooler that they put on the GTX280. So its designed to handle a lot more heat than the GTX260 is capable of outputting.

Is the Asus GTX 260 really that quiet? Opinions wanted ...

Is the Asus GTX 260 really that quiet? Opinions wanted ...

How does the noice compare to after market coolers?

Re: How does the noice compare to after market coolers?