X1900 Fan Noise. Is it Loud ?

The Asgard · 25 Jan 2006 at 11:41

Vogon said:
Not sure but I think thats correct Asguard.
In fact I will give you the dimensions ... <digs out stock cooler> ...
All the holes, arranged in a square, are 53mm centres from one another.

Cheers for that m8 although I'm sure the bolts on my NV68 block are not arranged liked that. Will have a look tonight.

Vogon · 25 Jan 2006 at 11:42

Gibbo said:
Hey

I must be death

Nooooooo ......... <runs away from the grim reaper>

Seriously, everyone percieves noise differently, and at a guess the shop is ambiently noisier than most peoples PC rooms, meaning it wouldn't be as noticable.

Asguard: Possibly the WB has 2 diagonal opposed holes ?
In which case the centres diagonaly are 75mm.

Dave2150 · 25 Jan 2006 at 11:44

The Asgard said:
Noise is a real killer for me. Immersion on one hand with the better graphics which is what everyone is trying to achieve and IMHO the all point of these new cards and on the other hand a dust buster in the background completely ruining the experience. You would have hoped ATI would have learned something given whats kicked off in the past with Nvidia and the new 512 cooling solution. I really wanted to have a play with one of these cards and was going to give up one of my GTX 512 to fund it.

I'm sure I read that the X1800 had the same mounted holes as the GTX? Anyone confirm this. I have a NV68 DD block sitting doing nothing

Dustbuster? Oh please.

And if you are playing games, I really do hope you are using speakers or headphones - you cannot hear this card over that....... :rolleyes:

VaderDSL · 25 Jan 2006 at 11:47

Dave2150 said:
Dustbuster? Oh please.

And if you are playing games, I really do hope you are using speakers or headphones - you cannot hear this card over that.......

Umm .. I'd say he's right to call it a dust buster as iirc The Asgard has some nice watercooling kit, and I know from personal experience from watercooling (back in the day when 120mm were hardly ever used in case and CPU cooling) that fans are loud no matter what model/type they are. Therefore The Asgard has every right to call it a dustbuster

this is all based on my shoddy memory of The Asgard having watercooling btw

The Asgard · 25 Jan 2006 at 12:07

VaderDSL said:
Umm .. I'd say he's right to call it a dust buster as iirc The Asgard has some nice watercooling kit, and I know from personal experience from watercooling (back in the day when 120mm were hardly ever used in case and CPU cooling) that fans are loud no matter what model/type they are. Therefore The Asgard has every right to call it a dustbuster this is all based on my shoddy memory of The Asgard having watercooling btw

You are correct m8 I am currently using a Reserator.

Gone are the days of dual delta's and trying to beat Gibbo's Seti unit crunch record which I did on a couple of occasions not to mention a few other of his records. The golden days of overclocking

Nice quiet PC with moderate overclocking is the order of the day now.

The Asgard · 25 Jan 2006 at 12:08

Vogon said:
Asguard: Possibly the WB has 2 diagonal opposed holes ?
In which case the centres diagonaly are 75mm.

That sounds about right.

JKD · 25 Jan 2006 at 12:13

Bit off topic - how do you find the reserator with your GTX 512 in the loop? I was considering going the res route myself. Only thing putting me off was I didn't like the look of the VGA block that comes with it - but you can use other water blocks, right?

The Asgard · 25 Jan 2006 at 12:25

JKD said:
Bit off topic - how do you find the reserator with your GTX 512 in the loop? I was considering going the res route myself. Only thing putting me off was I didn't like the look of the VGA block that comes with it - but you can use other water blocks, right?

Works really well m8. Running an X2 4400 @ 2.7 with around 1.55 volts and the GTX512 is currently clocked at 600/1800 but will go a bit higher. I took the connectors off the reserator flow sensor and then removed the 1/2" barbs off the DD NV68 block. The connectors would then screw into the DD block, they were a bit loose but I applied a bit of joint sealer which sorted the problem out.

With that setup I'm getting about 50-52 'C underload while playing Wow or Quake 4. Thats with the Reserator fully saturated. Really is a class bit of kit and well worth the money.

JKD · 25 Jan 2006 at 12:34

Cheers for that - got one in my shoping basket right now!

The Asgard · 25 Jan 2006 at 12:44

JKD said:
Cheers for that - got one in my shoping basket right now!

Not sure if its still around but Baddass had a thread about tuning the Reserator. Basically when you get the Reserator unscrew the base and attach a length of pipe to the pump outlet. This allows the hot water to discharge at the top of the tower instead of mixing with the inlet. Real bad design but this might have been fixed on the V2.

Dave2150 · 25 Jan 2006 at 13:09

VaderDSL said:
Umm .. I'd say he's right to call it a dust buster as iirc The Asgard has some nice watercooling kit, and I know from personal experience from watercooling (back in the day when 120mm were hardly ever used in case and CPU cooling) that fans are loud no matter what model/type they are. Therefore The Asgard has every right to call it a dustbuster this is all based on my shoddy memory of The Asgard having watercooling btw

Using your theory dont you agree that ANY grapphics card with a fan can be called a "dustbuster"?

I too use a reserator, with 3x80mm fans for my case @ 5v, so thats near enough silent.

I can only hear my X1800 hum lightly when running games, benchmarks etc.

Gibbo is a very reliable source, at times he has been accused of being NVIDIA biased, so why on earth would he say the following:

Gibbo said:
I have two in Crossfire here and when the machine is just running as normal I can't hear them unless I put my ear against them. When under load they do pick up but is just a quiet gentle hum even after running 3D Mark for 1 hour and more.

Two fans of the same type are obviously louder than one, and the fact that the cards are installed closely together on the motherboard only means they will pickup the heat from each other, thus raising the core temperatute and so the fan speed.

For people worried this card is loud - it is not. My geforce4 card sitting in my server screams in comparison. my X800XT PE was louder than this card.

The Asgard · 25 Jan 2006 at 13:25

Perhaps your lucky and just have a quiet one

Noise is very subjective which is why I created the thread. Hopefully there should be some positive feedback regarding the noise.

Dave2150 said:
Using your theory dont you agree that ANY grapphics card with a fan can be called a "dustbuster"?

I too use a reserator, with 3x80mm fans for my case @ 5v, so thats near enough silent.

I can only hear my X1800 hum lightly when running games, benchmarks etc.

Gibbo is a very reliable source, at times he has been accused of being NVIDIA biased, so why on earth would he say the following:

Two fans of the same type are obviously louder than one, and the fact that the cards are installed closely together on the motherboard only means they will pickup the heat from each other, thus raising the core temperatute and so the fan speed.

For people worried this card is loud - it is not. My geforce4 card sitting in my server screams in comparison. my X800XT PE was louder than this card.

Dave2150 · 25 Jan 2006 at 13:46

The Asgard said:
Perhaps your lucky and just have a quiet one

Noise is very subjective which is why I created the thread. Hopefully there should be some positive feedback regarding the noise.

So Im lucky to get a quiet one, Gibbo is lucky to get two quiet ones, Loadsamoney is lucky to get one, the reviewers are lucky, etc

Big.Wayne · 25 Jan 2006 at 14:03

Gibbo said:
I must be death

yup you are death to anyones credit card that reads your posts

The Asgard · 25 Jan 2006 at 14:03

Dave2150 said:
So Im lucky to get a quiet one, Gibbo is lucky to get two quiet ones, Loadsamoney is lucky to get one, the reviewers are lucky, etc

It was a joke m8 :rolleyes:

LoadsaMoney · 25 Jan 2006 at 14:10

Dave2150 said:
A friend of mine had his card delivered this morning. It sounds exactly like my X1800XT's fan. In fact it sounds quieter - simply because he is using the Heatsink and fan which came with his AMD processor, and I am using watercooling. So he cannot hear this card above his cpu fan.

If you have a standard cpu fan, you will not hear this card tbh.

If you have a massive heatsink for your cpu and a slow fan, then you will notice it change RPM as it gets hotter.

Yup, standard A64 cooler here, which lets face it isn't loud, an id say the x1800 is very quiet, i was expecting it to sound like the 5800 when i first saw how big it was, but mine hardly picks up under heavy gaming, all i can hear is a faint whine, my old x800 XT PE was louder, its only loud for about 2 secs when you first turn it on, as it goes full speed, but then it drops to its silent 2D speed, x1900 will be the same as its the same cooler, in fact its the same board, only difference is it has x1900 written on the cooler, and has few more trannies.

dis · 25 Jan 2006 at 14:39

The Asgard said:
Noise is very subjective

Couldn't agree more.

I'm one of those silence freaks so more than likely i'll start looking for a waterblock at some stage. Still, i refuse to believe that they can be any worse than the old 40mm fans you used to get on graphics cards, they had waaay too much high frequency (i.e annoying) noise. I'll post back once i've tried it tonight.

Vogon · 25 Jan 2006 at 14:41

Dave2150 said:
So Im lucky to get a quiet one, Gibbo is lucky to get two quiet ones, Loadsamoney is lucky to get one, the reviewers are lucky, etc

I musta been unlucky then

Big wayne, thats almost exactly how I pictured him when I made my comment

D.P. · 25 Jan 2006 at 15:01

Dave2150 said:
So Im lucky to get a quiet one, Gibbo is lucky to get two quiet ones, Loadsamoney is lucky to get one, the reviewers are lucky, etc

I've not seen a single review that said it was quite, only reviews that proclaimed how loud it is.

The X1800 and X1900 are not as quiet as the 7800 GTX 256 or 512. Period.

Noise levels are subjective and depends on a persons particular frequency response. Maybe the X1800 and X1900 run with a higher frequency which is beyond some peoples peak hearing threshold so to you it seems quiter as you are not as sensitive at those frequnecies. To those that are sensitive will find the higher pitch even more irritating than a lower pitched sound even if it was just as loud relatively.

And sound from 2 crossfire'd cards wont necessarily be any louder than a single card, its certainly not a linear relationship in any case.

D.P. · 25 Jan 2006 at 15:06

id say the x1800 is very quiet, i was expecting it to sound like the 5800 when i first saw how big it was,

The 5800s that went into retail were quiter than the standard X800/x850s and quiter than the X1800/X1900, 7800GT/GTX256/512.

The reference cards were loud, but only loud compared to quite cards of the time. Retail cards like the ABit OTES version were practicly silennt. The Double slot cooler employed allowed for some good cooling, of course the ATI fanboys heavily critized the dual slot design until ATI starting shipping cards with the same cooler design and all of a sudden it became a good design...

But anyway, thats enough History.