Having trouble choosing a 4090 manufacturer (or whether to get it)

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StoleMyOwnCar

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It's been quite a while since I've been here, but I usually come here for advice so here I am again.

I've been pretty satisfied with my 3080 Ti and 5950X setup that I built about a year ago. It's handling my virtual machine use, scripting, etc... without any flaws. However, I've recently gotten into Stable Diffusion. That means running the PC for long periods doing generation work. My issue is that my 3080 Ti is basically breathing right onto my NVME SSDs' heatsinks, which themselves are now constantly at 52-55C. This makes me uncomfortable, even though it's technically in spec. So, I was looking into trying to watercool it, and then I said "screw it, why not just turn the entire system into a custom loop?" That's why I created this parts list as a bit of a "custom loop starter pack" (no fittings yet, and I haven't actually picked it up yet):
1691657927544.png


Anyway, but then I started wondering why I'm spending 500$ on custom cooling last gen's card (well granted most of the loop could be an investment into the future) when the 4090 is literally twice as powerful at AI generation at roughly the same TDP. I could basically run it at 75% of the TDP/clocks on a 4090 and save on AC costs big time while actually working faster, and it actually would recoup the costs eventually.

But as a caveat: I know it's illegal for manufacturers to deny warranty claims due to modifications like these, but they can still give me a runaround, and I really don't have time to waste on legal action. EVGA is gone, and thus we all suffer. Ironically (and unfortunately) one of the few waterblocks that Microcenter has in stock (that I see) for the 4090 is for the Gaming Trio X from MSI, yet AFAIK (from some cursory reading) MSI is one of the manufacturers that raises the biggest fuss when watercooling (and their warranty can be sketchy to begin with?). I also looked at Gigabyte and MSI's AIO options. MSI's Suprim AIO looks attractive, but Gigabyte's hybrid option looks kind of flimsy. Since I've actually RMA'd with Gigabyte before and received a working card back, though, I'm still leaning towards Gigabyte, but I don't know where to get a waterblock for it, or what Gigabyte's warranty policy is on GPU's that have had waterblocks. Plus, VRAM and VRM temps can be bad since iirc they're not really full water block coverage. Plus, obviously the freaking "I can buy multiple appliances for this cost, or just a really nice fridge" pricetag has me pausing.

So I have a lot of options. Some of them:
1. I just stick with my current plan and get the loop and do my 3080 Ti, and maybe underclock/volt it to save juice (cheap), while waiting for the next gen (if it ever comes, though, with Nvidia's focus on corporate AI). However word on the street is we might be in for another GPU shortage, at least according to JayZ (who might be BSing, who knows).
2. I can grab a 4090 and try to find a waterblock while buying the rest of the loop (really expensive though).
3. Or I can just buy a 4090 AIO and forego the custom loop hassle. But the VRAM and/or VRM temps might be bad, and that's maybe not good for workloads like this...
4. Maybe look into a blower configuration? I guess that would be a Founder's Edition card, but I'm not sure if they are even still in blower configuration.
5. I do none of it and just let my NVMEs cook lol...

I'm now a bit lost now. Thoughts?
 
I feel like you're "creating" problems to justify a 4090 to yourself. 52C is fine for an SSD, never going to bother it.

That being said, cards like the MSI Suprim X Liquid are really good and will save you the custom loop hassle if thats what you really want. You can sell that 3080ti for at least $500-600 and help bring the cost down.
 
LigTasm said:
I feel like you're "creating" problems to justify a 4090 to yourself. 52C is fine for an SSD, never going to bother it.

That being said, cards like the MSI Suprim X Liquid are really good and will save you the custom loop hassle if thats what you really want. You can sell that 3080ti for at least $500-600 and help bring the cost down.
Click to expand...

I think you have a point. There are some other incentives that I didn't really list out properly (which yeah I agree this is going to seem like I'm pulling excuses out of my ass at this point):

- My AC is pretty much running constantly during the daytime because it's fighting the PC, and it's summer (my last two electricity bills were $300 and $330, respectively). I think if I was able to move the Stable Diffusion PC to another room, or at least move the radiators, that would be nice... but I think the latter might be getting into exotic cooling. I don't think most custom loop pumps are meant to run such long tubing. Which brings me to the next point.

- I have no fallback PC if I want the thing running constantly except the 2080 RTX rig that's in my room (which isn't really worth running SD on tbh). I would end up keeping the 3080 Ti to do SD work on while I'm using the 4090, and/or during the daytime I could just use the 3080 Ti in another room so that it won't trigger the thermostat. Or maybe I don't need a 4090 and should just grab something else? But seems kind of pointless. The 4000 generation for Nvidia seems to be 4090 or bust; the rest don't have enough VRAM, and AMD doesn't do stable diffusion at all. Ugh.

- Well, as noted, the stable diffusion efficiency of the 4090 is much higher (but so is the cost).

Actually I would say points 1 and 2 are really the primary reasons I'm doing this. Forget the SSD thing. I know it sounds like I'm inventing reasons, but that has legitimately been bothering me. My last electricity bill was like $300. My current one is $330. That's kind of an incentive to make something somewhere more efficient. I think at the very least doing my Stable Diffusion work in some other room that I don't mind getting hot during the daytime would probably be a good idea. If my 3080 Ti wasn't my main gaming PC, I think I could stand to shove it in a random room away from the thermostat. But you have a point, I don't really need a 4090 specifically. I could pick up a cheaper GPU to use as a primary GPU, I guess, and relegate my 3080 Ti to SD work. Hmm... I'll have to think about that; I do feel like you have a point, I'm just looking for reasons to get a 4090, too, lol.

With regards to the Suprim X Liquid: will its VRM and VRAM temps hold up, though? I have seen it noted that they actually get hotter than if it was a standard air cooler. IIRC mining work hits those hard, and this is pretty similar AFAIK.
 
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StoleMyOwnCar said:
I think you have a point. There are some other incentives that I didn't really list out properly (which yeah I agree this is going to seem like I'm pulling excuses out of my ass at this point):

- My AC is pretty much running constantly during the daytime because it's fighting the PC, and it's summer (my last two electricity bills were $300 and $330, respectively). I think if I was able to move the Stable Diffusion PC to another room, or at least move the radiators, that would be nice... but I think the latter might be getting into exotic cooling. I don't think most custom loop pumps are meant to run such long tubing. Which brings me to the next point.

- I have no fallback PC if I want the thing running constantly except the 2080 RTX rig that's in my room (which isn't really worth running SD on tbh). I would end up keeping the 3080 Ti to do SD work on while I'm using the 4090, and/or during the daytime I could just use the 3080 Ti in another room so that it won't trigger the thermostat. Or maybe I don't need a 4090 and should just grab something else? But seems kind of pointless. The 4000 generation for Nvidia seems to be 4090 or bust; the rest don't have enough VRAM, and AMD doesn't do stable diffusion at all. Ugh.

- Well, as noted, the stable diffusion efficiency of the 4090 is much higher (but so is the cost).

Actually I would say points 1 and 2 are really the primary reasons I'm doing this. Forget the SSD thing. I know it sounds like I'm inventing reasons, but that has legitimately been bothering me. My last electricity bill was like $300. My current one is $330. That's kind of an incentive to make something somewhere more efficient. I think at the very least doing my Stable Diffusion work in some other room that I don't mind getting hot during the daytime would probably be a good idea. If my 3080 Ti wasn't my main gaming PC, I think I could stand to shove it in a random room away from the thermostat. But you have a point, I don't really need a 4090 specifically. I could pick up a cheaper GPU to use as a primary GPU, I guess, and relegate my 3080 Ti to SD work. Hmm... I'll have to think about that; I do feel like you have a point, I'm just looking for reasons to get a 4090, too, lol.

With regards to the Suprim X Liquid: will its VRM and VRAM temps hold up, though? I have seen it noted that they actually get hotter than if it was a standard air cooler. IIRC mining work hits those hard, and this is pretty similar AFAIK.
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Yeahs summer power bills suck. I went solar and don't regret it for this reason, I got a new roof and panels for a $200 monthly payment which is half of what I normally pay for electricity, haven't had a bill since then. I make enough credits over the summer to cover AC use and the winter too.

Anyways, maybe get an air cooled unit then? I don't think the room cooling will be any better, the 4090 will still put more watts of heat into the room than the 3080ti even if it runs cooler.
 
Yeah I'm starting to think that if I do get a 4090, perhaps just getting an air cooled unit would be fine, if the NVME temps truly aren't a point of concern. I'll note that's with the drives mostly idle, though.

The idea is that during the day I could probably shove the 3080 Ti into a "hot room" to just generate by itself, and then during night, I could probably swap to the 4090. The TDP of my 3080 Ti tends to be around 400W, while the 4090 should be 450W, which is a very tiny difference. Or I could undervolt the 4090 to even half (if that's even possible), and I think even at half the clocks it should actually generate faster, while the TDP would be 225W for it, which would be quite a large cut... but then again summer will be over soon... hopefully. My current gaming PC is in a very central area and I can't avoid it raising the house temps a lot. Normally I don't game 24/7, and even if I did, the TDP wouldn't necessarily be capped at 100%, but it is when doing Stable Diffusion work.
 
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vick1000 said:
Point a fan at them, stick it on the backplate of the GPU. Or otherwise direct some airflow at them.
https://www.amazon.com/Semetall-Computer-Dissipation-Side-Blown-80mm-140mm/dp/B08D741TLR/ref=sr_1_6?crid=1RNJNCDOVG1GK&keywords=pci+bracket+fan&qid=1691706844&sprefix=pci+bracket+fan,aps,135&sr=8-6
https://www.amazon.com/SiyuXinyi-Bracket-Compatible-Vertical-Supports/dp/B07VS6GVZX/ref=sr_1_13?crid=1RNJNCDOVG1GK&keywords=pci+bracket+fan&qid=1691706907&sprefix=pci+bracket+fan,aps,135&sr=8-13
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Here's a layout of my cooling setup in my main PC. I did take out that sound card in favor of an external one, so I have two fans just straight up pointed at the GPU/NVME area, but they don't necessarily seem to help much. Well, they help the GPU, I mean... just not the NVMEs. The GPU temps are all great, even with the card running at full throttle. But thank you for the bracket idea. I had no idea they made those. That might be really nice for some people building in smaller, budget cases. I might take that to Pcpartpicker to help out some people.
1691742905416.jpeg
 
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Or wait, are you saying to put them on the OTHER side of the GPU, where the backplate is, so that they'll cause the heat from the GPU to travel upwards even faster? Hmm... that's a really interesting idea. I might throw one in there and see how it works. Thanks.

Edit: ideally I think it would need to point at least a bit upwards, though. Sideways won't help me very much...
https://www.amazon.com/Akasa-Bracket-Mounting-120mm-AK-MX304-12BK/dp/B08W53XDL6
This one might do better. Or I could get both and have one go outwards and the other upwards...
 
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StoleMyOwnCar said:
Or wait, are you saying to put them on the OTHER side of the GPU, where the backplate is, so that they'll cause the heat from the GPU to travel upwards even faster? Hmm... that's a really interesting idea. I might throw one in there and see how it works. Thanks.

Edit: ideally I think it would need to point at least a bit upwards, though. Sideways won't help me very much...
https://www.amazon.com/Akasa-Bracket-Mounting-120mm-AK-MX304-12BK/dp/B08W53XDL6
This one might do better
Click to expand...
I am saying mount them vertically blowing onto the motherboard. You need air flow over the M.2 sinks to disperse the heat between the GPU and motherboard. As long as you have enough space between the side panel and the expansion slot screws, you should be able yo use the brackets I linked to.
 
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After researching a bit, I think I'll probably go with the MSI Gaming X Trio 4090 after all. I won't waterblock it, though. The cooler on it is supposedly absolutely monstrous, and I got Microcenter to price match (lol 50$ discount). I think if anything would stand up to long term Stable Diffusion work, this thing probably would, especially undervolted. Very budget friendly price... err... comparatively...? I guess?

I have 3 days from when the price match goes away to actually grab it, so I'll have to decide if I really want it enough. I think the main thing that has me pausing at this point is that supposedly the next generation is releasing in 2024 (or very early 2025), and its performance gains are supposedly going to be relatively bonkers (like 2x). And then there's rumors of a 4090 Ti coming sooner than that... bah. You just can't win, these days. 1.6k USD for then having something that much better come down the pipe in like a year is kind of rough...
 
I kind of forgot how well a 3080 Ti handled power limits. To partially remedy my issue while I deliberated, I just opened up EVGA Precision X, and lowered the power limit to 80%. The core temperature literally plummeted (~65C at full load, hot spot and memory temps 73C and 80C at most), and power usage went down by 80-100W. The clocks moved down at most 4-5%. This is making quite a difference in the home temps during stable diffusion already, and my image generation times were virtually unaffected. I probably could cut them down even further, because there's a brief pause in between each generated image, which gives the core a little time to breath. I think even a 60-70% power limit might be a thing to consider.

As far as the 4090, I'm still probably going to get one, just because not having anything to game on while this is going kind of really sucks. I also looked into the 7900 XTX, because frankly all I really need is a GPU to hold me over till next gen, which promises to be a huge uplift... but at $950 or so, given the many missing features vs Nvidia, it's a really hard sell. If it was $800-850, I think I would be a lot more tempted. But if I'm already spending 950-1k+, that's where my "why am I even bothering with a lower end option" hat just gets put on.

Right now I'm just deliberating which 4090 to get. The Gaming X Trio looks appealing, and I'm considering buying one and putting it on a full water loop using the waterblock in stock at Microcenter... but I've read about its artificial power limitations, and it's kind of bugging me even though I know I will likely never overclock it (if anything, I'd probably underclock/volt it). The other card I'm looking at is the Gigabyte Gaming, but I've heard of various issues with it. The one that has me pausing the most is this:
1691939632564.png


But this has me a bit dubious. I can't find the supposed video by Jayz2cents that they're talking about. The Suprim X Liquid has me uncomfortable with its VRAM temps, because VRAM is going to be highly stressed during stable diffusion while I'm not using it to game. ASUS (not that I would ever touch anything by ASUS with a 10 foot pole after all the shit they've done to people) TUF has good build quality but the thermal pads are too thick, leading to bad VRAM temps as well.

So right now, the Gaming X Trio+Corsair waterblock is still the top option that I'm considering. Putting aside next gen, another thing that I'm reading is that power connectors to 4090s are still melting, and it's not actually all user error, as previously thought. Sigh
 
There is only one answer. Get a 4090.
Which one? Take your pick based on your budget. All cards work fine.
 
I ultimately decided on a Suprim X Liquid. After more research I decided the VRAM temps would be okay enough... probably. Here's a quick shitty phone picture:

1280_20230814_212403.jpg


The cables are like that on purpose. The MSI documentation said to not bend the adapter cabling if you could help it. I obliged and tried to keep it nice and spread out and also minimized the bending as much as I could within the confines of this tower... The temperatures were pretty cool on the core. I ran Cyberpunk 2077 with literally every freaking setting I could think of, maxed at 3440x1440 for about 30 mins and it was pretty smooth. Maximum core temp was 60.9C, and memory temp was 78C. I'm a bit iffy on the memory temperature, but I guess it's not too terrible.


1692065620125.png


So, some issues though:

* It definitely has some coil whine. I can only really hear it over all of the other fans when my ear is literally right against the back of it, but it has this buzzing sound (like sawmill style buzzing)... though hard to tell if it's a fan or not.

* Is it me or is this boost clock kind of low, even at stock? While maxing Cyberpunk, it's pretty much pinned at 2790Mhz. Is this just a dud card? =\

Hmm. Well, Microcenter is pretty good about exchanges if I feel like it.

Ironically the VRAM temp during Stable Diffusion is actually lower than during gaming because of the pause between each image generation... this card generates so fast that the pause between each image actually takes a decent amount of the time of the entire image generation, so the VRAM never goes beyond like 60C during stable diffusion... at least with how much VRAM I was using. I don't really remember if VRAM temperature is proportional to how much of it is actually being used, or just how fast it's being driven. If it's the former, I need to find a game that uses it more to properly stress test it. Have to admit the coil whine is a bit of a bummer, though. I have an EVGA 1.2kW Supernova P2 power supply, and I think that should be well more than sufficient for this build. It's supposed to be a pretty good unit. I kind of doubt it's the cause of the buzzing since this is the first card I've ever had with it. Granted, it's very quiet, I guess, and my hearing is unnaturally sharp.

Well, it runs very cool at least, especially during Stable Diffusion.
 

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Yeah temps during my current Stable Diffusion batch workload are actually remarkably chilly. That's pretty nice...

... It also has a different sound profile for the coil whine during stable diffusion. It's even quieter but has a distinct alien "I'm phoning home" kind of vibe to it.
 
Coil whine is like potluck you may or may not get it. A lot of people complained about it on ASUS TUF cards but I didn’t have it.

Your temps are fine. 78 C on mem is nothing. Enjoy your card. As for cabling, everyone using stock cable has horrible cabling. Don’t worry about it.
 
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Your clocks and temps are good, exactly what you should expect for an aio cooled 4090 :). You should try an undervolt and/or power limit a bit. Like you saw with your 3080ti, you only lose a little bit of performance for a large power consumption drop.
 
KickAssCop said:
Coil whine is like potluck you may or may not get it. A lot of people complained about it on ASUS TUF cards but I didn’t have it.

Your temps are fine. 78 C on mem is nothing. Enjoy your card. As for cabling, everyone using stock cable has horrible cabling. Don’t worry about it.
Click to expand...
I mean that's fair, but since I got it from Microcenter, and they're only about 25 minutes away (and it's kinda really expensive), I don't really see much harm in just doing a quick exchange. I might bring my entire computer with me so we can at least rule out my home wiring. Of course, there would be some worry that the new one would whine even worse. But my 3080 Ti didn't really exhibit whine (at least I believe it didn't), and it's a very similar TDP. That kind of leads me to hopefully believe that it might just be this one.

It's not an issue with where it's located at right now due to the ambient noise in my fish tanks, but if I ever move it to a more quiet room, I think it would kind of bother me because I have good hearing. Well, I guess even then it would really only bother me during very quiet cutscenes, though, since normally you don't play without sound. Hm...

GoldenTiger said:
Your clocks and temps are good, exactly what you should expect for an aio cooled 4090 :). You should try an undervolt and/or power limit a bit. Like you saw with your 3080ti, you only lose a little bit of performance for a large power consumption drop.
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Yeah, that's definitely on the roadmap. I'm guessing EVGA Precision X probably won't work with this thing... I guess I have to get Afterburner. I agree that at the very least the core temp is absolutely phenomenal. Being in the 60's under full load is great.

I really do think this is the 4090 to get. Normally a full waterblock (while being much better for VRAM/VRM) is ~200$+ and requires multiple other components. This only had a 137$ premium (which is nothing considering the price tag) when I bought it and just comes already assembled and ready to go, and the temps are great.
 
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I mean if my card had coil whine I would smash it or sell it asap. So I think going to MC w/ your comp to test it out and pick the one that works seems like a sound plan. I also have very sensitive hearing and my case remains open (45 C in Dubai - ambient at 24 C though). So with this much heat being pushed out having a closed case is not really an option for me.
 
KickAssCop said:
I mean if my card had coil whine I would smash it or sell it asap. So I think going to MC w/ your comp to test it out and pick the one that works seems like a sound plan. I also have very sensitive hearing and my case remains open (45 C in Dubai - ambient at 24 C though). So with this much heat being pushed out having a closed case is not really an option for me.
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Someone is suggesting that it might be a capacitor choice. Ironically, Zotac/Gigabyte/etc with "cheaper" capacitors tends to not have the issue at all, whereas MSI is using more expensive capacitors that tend to have the issue...

I hope that's not the case. Sigh. I hope they let me test it while I'm there. I'm not fond of driving half an hour there, half an hour back, and then possibly finding out I have the same issue again.
 
To be honest, I have heard most issues of coil whine with MSI for 4090s, ASUS second and least with Gigabyte. Zotac I just ignore because their cards suck ass. My 3080 12 GB had massive coil whine and was extremely noisy. Sold it in 3 days because sending it back to US of A would've been a pain in the ass.

Testing at MC seems your best option.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
Someone is suggesting that it might be a capacitor choice. Ironically, Zotac/Gigabyte/etc with "cheaper" capacitors tends to not have the issue at all, whereas MSI is using more expensive capacitors that tend to have the issue...

I hope that's not the case. Sigh. I hope they let me test it while I'm there. I'm not fond of driving half an hour there, half an hour back, and then possibly finding out I have the same issue again.
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Inductors/ Chokes are what cause coil whine, or dirty power being fed to them. As long as the caps have enough capacity, they should not cause dirty power. But poor design can mean not enough capacitance in the filter stage for all scenarios, or occilation from poor tolerance. Then throw in poorly epoxied or losely wound chokes, and it's squeal city.
 
vick1000 said:
Inductors/ Chokes are what cause coil whine, or dirty power being fed to them. As long as the caps have enough capacity, they should not cause dirty power. But poor design can mean not enough capacitance in the filter stage for all scenarios, or occilation from poor tolerance. Then throw in poorly epoxied or losely wound chokes, and it's squeal city.
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I'm using an EVGA Supernova 1200 P2 that I got on sale a while ago. That's a very highly rated platinum power supply unit, I believe. It's running through an APC SUA1500 UPS unit. Which is certainly old, but should be plenty serviceable. I can try moving it to various rooms first. I also have much newer modern Cyberpower units that I got from Costco, so I can try hooking it up to those first.
 
KickAssCop said:
To be honest, I have heard most issues of coil whine with MSI for 4090s, ASUS second and least with Gigabyte. Zotac I just ignore because their cards suck ass. My 3080 12 GB had massive coil whine and was extremely noisy. Sold it in 3 days because sending it back to US of A would've been a pain in the ass.

Testing at MC seems your best option.
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You know, I didn't go with Gigabyte because of them supposedly being louder and because of that one review on the Microcenter web site, but they were actually going to be my first choice for this. I might just go back to them if it doesn't work out with MSI.
 
Can you run the PC direct to wall without the UPS? Might reduce whine especially if you are saying it is old.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
You know, I didn't go with Gigabyte because of them supposedly being louder and because of that one review on the Microcenter web site, but they were actually going to be my first choice for this. I might just go back to them if it doesn't work out with MSI.
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I would never make a decision based on one review on MC's website.
 
KickAssCop said:
Can you run the PC direct to wall without the UPS? Might reduce whine especially if you are saying it is old.
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Yeah I'll run the whole gamut. I'll move it to different rooms, hook it up to different UPS, etc.

And yeah it's quite old, it looks like this:

1692112422142.png


Furious_Styles said:
I would never make a decision based on one review on MC's website.
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Normally I would agree, but he made it sound like a systematic flaw that was documented by other people in the tech circles.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/gigabyte-gpu-design-details-emerge-about-pcb-cracking

It does seem to be a real thing, googling it.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
Yeah I'll run the whole gamut. I'll move it to different rooms, hook it up to different UPS, etc.

And yeah it's quite old, it looks like this:

View attachment 590508



Normally I would agree, but he made it sound like a systematic flaw that was documented by other people in the tech circles.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/gigabyte-gpu-design-details-emerge-about-pcb-cracking

It does seem to be a real thing, googling it.
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That's one of the good APC UPSs. I wouldn't expect it to be the cause of any problems. Are you sure the buzzing you're hearing isn't the pump on the Suprim X?
 
Astral Abyss said:
That's one of the good APC UPSs. I wouldn't expect it to be the cause of any problems. Are you sure the buzzing you're hearing isn't the pump on the Suprim X?
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Do pumps make a buzzing noise normally...? I don't think I've ever had a pump make a buzzing noise.

Regardless, it also makes a sort of dial-up ish sound during stable diffusion workloads. Hard to explain.

I think the sound depends on what is being displayed.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
I'm using an EVGA Supernova 1200 P2 that I got on sale a while ago. That's a very highly rated platinum power supply unit, I believe. It's running through an APC SUA1500 UPS unit. Which is certainly old, but should be plenty serviceable. I can try moving it to various rooms first. I also have much newer modern Cyberpower units that I got from Costco, so I can try hooking it up to those first.
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If using an UPS, make sure it's a sine wave simulation unit, PSU with PFC work better with pure sine wave forms.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
Do pumps make a buzzing noise normally...? I don't think I've ever had a pump make a buzzing noise.

Regardless, it also makes a sort of dial-up ish sound during stable diffusion workloads. Hard to explain.

I think the sound depends on what is being displayed.
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It's probably coil whine, but sometimes it's hard to tell where it's coming from. I had a EVGA 850w G3 that would whine when mounted upside down (fan up), but was silent when mounted normally.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
Do pumps make a buzzing noise normally...? I don't think I've ever had a pump make a buzzing noise.

Regardless, it also makes a sort of dial-up ish sound during stable diffusion workloads. Hard to explain.

I think the sound depends on what is being displayed.
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They can, yes. Especially these small pumps trying to push water through a 3x120mm rad. My Corsair integrated waterblock pump gets louder than my fans when it's at high speed. No sense in chasing ghosts if it turns out it's a pump and not fixable.

BTW I have the same PSU as you do and it's been really quiet and hasn't induced any coil whine in any components I've used it with.
 
Alright, so this is what it sounds like when it's gaming. I'm doing my best to use the bottom mic on my S23 Ultra. So the power supply, despite being in the video frame, is not actually what's causing the sounds you hear; the phone mic is right to the back of the graphics card.


View: https://youtube.com/shorts/VYywEUWgBfo

I think youtube compression took a lot of out of it, but you can still hear the buzzing, when you get past the air movement from the fans.

This is what Stable Diffusion sounds like:


View: https://youtube.com/shorts/k2FQ1LbqKcg

This was done in a completely separate bedroom, away from my UPS entirely. I don't think there's really any doubt, the first one might sound like pump noise, but its noise during Stable DIffusion is probably coil whine. It's not terribly loud, but I don't like the idea of paying for a 1.73k USD GPU with coil whine...
 
Honestly if they don't let me try out another one while in the store, I think I'm probably going to just grab the Gigabyte. Save $100, run a bit hotter and louder, but they're reporter to have virtually no coil whine by pretty much everyone. The bending sounds concerning, but I'll do my best to be careful. I'll use their bracket, along with the bracket that I already have for sagging on my 3080 Ti.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
Honestly if they don't let me try out another one while in the store, I think I'm probably going to just grab the Gigabyte. Save $100, run a bit hotter and louder, but they're reporter to have virtually no coil whine by pretty much everyone. The bending sounds concerning, but I'll do my best to be careful. I'll use their bracket, along with the bracket that I already have for sagging on my 3080 Ti.
Click to expand...
Any card can have coil whine. I hope they just let you swap it out in store, would be easy to do.
 
So unfortunately it turns out that the card wasn't whining after all. I put the new Gigabyte in and heard the exact same whine during stable diffusion. Confused, I put my 3080 Ti back in and this time got much closer than I generally did when listening. Turns out the 3080 Ti also had the exact same whine, it was just a decent bit quieter. I wonder if this is related to the PCIE slot itself somehow, rather than the GPU. The increase in whine probably has something to do with the much higher data throughput of the 4090.

Of course this is just pure conjecture.

Well, I got the Gigabyte 4090 Gaming installed. The support bracket is a really nice touch. The cooler is what surprised the heck out of me, though. Even while running Cyberpunk or any of the most demanding games, this is basically as hot as it got:
1692245201756.png

Unfortunately clipped off, but that is core temp, hot spot, and memory temp, respectively. The memory temp is much lower than the AIO unit, and the GPU temp is... not really much higher than the AIO unit. Plus, I don't have to worry about this cooler failing.worst case, a fan might fail and that's about it.

Unfortunately, a downside is that it doesn't boost as high. I saw around 2730-2745 after long runtimes in Cyberpunk. The MSI boosted to 2790 and stayed there pretty much constantly. I'm kind of confused if Gigabyte just underclocked this on purpose to not compete with their AORUS line, because the thermal headroom seems to be more than there considering it caps out at 65C (and that's with the fans still relatively inaudible). I think it's a mere 2% clock difference, so I'm not sure if I care enough. The memory temps make me very happy, and it's also cheaper yet carries a longer warranty.

Tradeoffs, I guess.

Nabbed the new Harry Potter game (actually another impetus for me to get this; the reports that it outscaled 12GB vram) and tried playing it, played absolutely flawlessly, with the highest load I saw being ~88% with everything absolutely maxed at 3440x1440. This is a really good card for 3440x1440. I can't really imagine anything easily outscaling its capacity... well then again... I'm sure some lazy dev out there will prove me wrong within 1-2 years.
 
Cool. Saved a few bucks.
Where is the whine coming from then? My bet is on the UPS unit.
 
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