If your GTX 1660 allows a fan speed below 40%, let me know the model.

[joyegaw187]

My previous AMD card supported a low fan speed percentage like 15% (I could set a lower percentage, but that did not seem to translate into a lower RPM). That resulted in an RPM like 1000 (I don't remember exactly). However, the lowest fan speed that my new GTX 1660 card allows me (through Afterburner and others) is 40%. And that is about 1500 RPM. So, even when the GPU is cool (36 Celsius or something), the fan runs at about 1500 RPM, whose noise was a lot more noticeable than the 1000 RPM of the AMD card.

So, I am looking for a GeForce 1660 that allows me to set a lower fan speed. If you are using a GTX 1660 card, and you can set the fan speed below 40% (and that actually lowers the RPM than that of the 40% speed), please let me know the model name of your card.

 

[Tetras]

Do you mean when it is idle or 2D, or so that you can control it even at low load? MSI Gaming X and Gigabyte 1660 models don't spin at all when idle, as far as I know. I don't know what the minimum speed is.

 

[joyegaw187]

Do you mean when it is idle or 2D, or so that you can control it even at low load? MSI Gaming X and Gigabyte 1660 models don't spin at all when idle, as far as I know. I don't know what the minimum speed is.

I know some models have a feature to stop the fan completely when the temperature is below 50 or 60, but if the minimum speed is high like 40% (1500 RPM), that would mean that when the fan starts to spin from the stopped mode, it would generate more noise than a card with lower fan speed.

AMD's settings application has fan control/information feature natively, but for nVidia, you would have to use an app like Afterburner to see the minimum fan speed...

 

[Aretak]

Not exactly what you're looking for, but TechPowerUp have a chart of the gaming noise levels of the ones they tested:

Unsurprisingly, the more expensive cards are quieter. For what it's worth, my 2070S Gaming X has a minimum fan speed of 25%, but that's only 668RPM.

 

[LeMson]

Jam something in the fan or buy/put on headphones

 

[joyegaw187]

Unsurprisingly, the more expensive cards are quieter. For what it's worth, my 2070S Gaming X has a minimum fan speed of 25%, but that's only 668RPM.

700 RPM? That must be really quiet. My CPU after-market cooler's minimum RPM is about that and it is almost inaudible at that speed. Wait a minute, that model is from MSI. And mine is MSI, too. How come they put a fan that can go as low as 700 RPM on a high-end chip like 2070S but a fan whose minimum RPM is 1500 RPM on a low-middle-end chip like 1660? 2070S should generate more heat than 1660...?

Are fans whose minimum RPM is low a lot more expensive or something? But it is just some stupid piece of plastic, how much price difference could there be?

 

[pingu666]

good fans cost money, and as you get to lower rpm, you can get more noise from the motor/electronics like clicks and buzzes and stuff
if you have room you can probably remove your stock fans, and zip tie on a much bigger, deeper decent fan(s), and use gfx card to pwm adapter cable. you will get around double the pressure and double the airflow more or less.

 

[Aretak]

Are fans whose minimum RPM is low a lot more expensive or something? But it is just some stupid piece of plastic, how much price difference could there be?

From everything I've observed (not just with GPU fans, but fans in general), making a fan that can run well at low RPMs seems to be a lot more difficult than making one that can just spin fast. The fan stop feature is almost never implemented on cheaper graphics card models either, when in theory it's something that should cost manufacturers nothing to implement. Yet I know that some of the cheaper case fans I've had have really not liked being run at low RPMs (or voltage when I had a Define R4 where the fan controller used 3-pin fans). They'd make weird electrical noises if slowed too much or stopped, as mentioned above. It was one of the reasons I started buying Noctua fans, as they perform silently at low RPMs and don't mind being stopped entirely.