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GTX 260... is it loud or quiet?

nathanc

nathanc

nathanc

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When I bought my second 8800GT so I could SLI on my new motherboard... the first attempt was a BFG.

I was shocked to discover that there was no thermal fan control - so the fan permanently ran at a high speed (60% or something) it was very uncomfortable and created an awful whine..

Since the old GTX 260s are being cleared out of inventory the prices are beginning to drop quite nicely but thermal fan control tends not to be an advertised feature (or lack thereof).

See matthew's review here: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...008-ZT&tool=3&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=927

This is obviously why the Zotac is so much cheaper than the other 55nm Maxcore models.

I can accept loud graphics cards when I'm in the middle of Crysis Warhead... (my two GTs can get quite noisy in a heavy Crysis sess...) it doesn't matter too much cos the game's sound is ramped up! The problem is when the computer is idle and windows is just sitting there doing nothing (not counting all the background stuff Vista does).

I would like to see OCUK note in the product descriptions whether the graphics card has thermal fan control or not!

The last thing I want to do is buy a card then have to RMA it because it doesn't fulfill my criteria!

BTW, can anyone comment, noise wise, on the two EVGA cards?
 
I thought all 260GTX built on the reference design had fan control? afaik the zotac isn't a deviation from that...

My BFG 260 maxcore is dead quiet on normal settings.
 
nathanc said:
This is obviously why the Zotac is so much cheaper than the other 55nm Maxcore models.

I can accept loud graphics cards when I'm in the middle of Crysis Warhead... (my two GTs can get quite noisy in a heavy Crysis sess...) it doesn't matter too much cos the game's sound is ramped up! The problem is when the computer is idle and windows is just sitting there doing nothing (not counting all the background stuff Vista does).

I would like to see OCUK note in the product descriptions whether the graphics card has thermal fan control or not!
Click to expand...

All the GTX260s sold by OCUK use reference PCBs AFAIK, and therefore all have the same degree of automatic fan control. Very likely that the user in the review that you quoted had set his machine up wrongly or software fan control was interfering with the card's bios.

I can't speak for the 260s, but my 280's fan control works absolutely fine.
 
Download EVGA Precision and create a few custom profiles. I have one for gaming (ramps the fan up to 80%) and one for everyday use (55%).

OK, so it's manual fan control (not automatic) but it does the job nicely.

:)
 
The impression I get is that the cards do have automatic fan control... it just gets tweaked by you.

I do the same on my 8800GT cards. I just adjust the curve in the NV control panel to reduce the idle speed to 30%.

I was really just talking about a scenario where there is NO fan control (as in what happened with my Alpha Dog 8800GT).. however it looks like the good news is that no GTX 260 cards have this lacking :)
 
I just bought the 55nm 260 216 xt version its £155 on another site and its quiet i can hear it in windows but it isnt annoying.
 
I have a GTX280 and as I have a quiet watercooled system it is the loudest part of my system, default fanspeed at idle is 40% which is >1000rpm, I have lowered the idle fanspeed to 32% which is quiet enough not to be annoying.

At load the fan ramps up considerably but I don't mind as the sound of revving V8's or flying bullets makes me forget the noise.

As for cards not having thermally controlled fans, I guess it is hit and miss, the best thing would be to ask people having the exact card you want to see if their card has a thermally controlled fan or not.
 
Diggsy said:
I have the EVGA GTX260 SSC 55nm and it is very quiet, even when at full load looping 3dmark
Click to expand...

Yup have the same card very quiet can't hear the thing at all.

In fact the only time I can actually hear the fan is if I really really load the card using Furmark, anything else it never gets hot enough to spin up the fan :)
 
Acceptable levels of noise is always subjective. I tried an EVGA GTX260 SSC 55nm and found the fan noise annoying at idle (it was louder than my effectively silent 8800GTS). Reducing the (40%) fan to around 35% using Rivatuner eliminated it though.
 
boosfuk said:
Acceptable levels of noise is always subjective. I tried an EVGA GTX260 SSC 55nm and found the fan noise annoying at idle (it was louder than my effectively silent 8800GTS). Reducing the (40%) fan to around 35% using Rivatuner eliminated it though.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this post, just bought one of these cards for a system and it is currently the loudest thing in my PC by a longshot (nocuta 5v fans, akasa eclipse, suspended samsung drive etc) Either I'd have to find a way of making it quiet or find a suitable aftermarket cooler.
 
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