Quietest High performance video card?

D

dbr1

Weaksauce
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Feb 1, 2012
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Looking for the quietest video card possible that is still a reasonably strong performer.

Applications: some gaming now and for the next few years (mostly flight sims/ combat flight sims), run a couple of large monitors at high resolution, have enough GPU power to help edit videos in Adobe Premiere and photos in photoshop, also 3d CAD work.

Price: $300 or less, $250 or less even better.

I currently have a Sapphire 7750 with a fanless heatsink. Obviously silent, but it crashes when it works too hard, presumably because it gets too hot. This is the only fanless current generation card I can find, maybe that's why.

My understanding of current hardware is that Nvidia has better gaming performance, better power efficiency and therefore would likely not need as much cooling help, and therefore could run quieter because the fans would run slower. But AMD has better 'compute' performance, maybe better for the Adobe and CAD work.
 
All of the Gigabyte Windforce cards I've tried have impressed me with excellent cooling and quiet operation. I also like the new Galaxy 660 ti cards, very quiet and cool as well and comparable to the Windforce cards.
 
You probably won't do better than ASUS DCII. Decibel-wise, they're almost always at the top. That said, that sometimes comes with a low-RPM tradeoff, meaning it's sacrificing cooling for noise.

So I would also recommend Gigabyte for quietest with best cooling, followed by Galaxy and Sapphire (interesting that they're exclusive to nVidia and AMD, respectively). MSI seems to be the reverse of ASUS, in that they're still fairly quiet and definitely cool, but not quite as quiet as the ones mentioned above.
 
+1 for Gigabyte and their Windforce coolers, and +2 for Asus DCII, especially versions that were reduced back to dual slot. In addition to these, I found happiness with the MSI Twin Frozr IV.
 
I should probably read posts 'till the end, huh?

In your price range, the two cards would be 660 ti and 7950. 7950 is a stronger performer, but like you said, at the cost of increased heat and noise (7950 is still very quiet). Also consider that Adobe apps use CUDA acceleration (nVidia).

Ultimately, you are deciding between some very close options, models and brands alike, and whichever you pick, you shouldn't be all too dissatisfied.
 
OP for 300 bucks it would be worth getting a HD 7950. With the 12.11 beta driver HD 7950 Boost is on par with GTX 670. the Never settle game bundle for HD 7950 is already available. grab a HD 7950 with this bundle.
 
raghu78 said:
OP for 300 bucks it would be worth getting a HD 7950. With the 12.11 beta driver HD 7950 Boost is on par with GTX 670. the Never settle game bundle for HD 7950 is already available. grab a HD 7950 with this bundle.
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This.

Newegg is having some pretty fantastic deals on 7950's at the moment, especially with the "Never Settle" bundle, e.g. - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202006&name=Desktop-Graphics-Cards . Coupled with the sizeable performance increase from the new 12.11 drivers, the deal is even more incredible.
 
Check out the 660ti. My 680s are pretty damn quiet, and I can't imagine the 660ti is worse.
 
My ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II is extremely quiet on auto fan. Even during the summer I never heard it above the case fans (which are also very quiet). I would imagine a GTX 660 Ti with the same HSF would be very quiet as well and fit your budget.
 
You seem to be price-conscious. So all these posters recommending the Asus DCII GTX 670 don't make a lot of sense; that's the most desired--and thus highest priced--670 out there. I've never seen it in stock anywhere. And the 670 is woefully overpriced compared to AMD's offerings to begin with. You will not be finding a DC2 for under $380.

The lowest you can hope to find a 670 for is $350. That's with a reference cooler which is sort-of-quiet.

You can find even non-reference 7950s for just under $300 all over the place. If you'd like a quiet one, I recommend the Powercolor PCS+ 7950. The card commands about a $30 premium over the cheapest 7950s, putting it around $330, but it is supremely quiet and of high quality overall.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_7950_PCS_Plus/26.html
 
Another nod for the 7950 here. AMD has really ramped up the performance with their drivers on the 79xx series. People said they needed to double down on their drivers, and whatayaknow, they did!

Unless you are a committed team green guy, it's very hard to pass on red cards right now.

Speaking of which, we need some re-reviews on performance with the new drivers. I wouldn't be surprised to see 25%+ gains on a lot of titles.
 
wabbitseason said:
You seem to be price-conscious. So all these posters recommending the Asus DCII GTX 670 don't make a lot of sense; that's the most desired--and thus highest priced--670 out there. I've never seen it in stock anywhere. And the 670 is woefully overpriced compared to AMD's offerings to begin with. You will not be finding a DC2 for under $380.

The lowest you can hope to find a 670 for is $350. That's with a reference cooler which is sort-of-quiet.

You can find even non-reference 7950s for just under $300 all over the place. If you'd like a quiet one, I recommend the Powercolor PCS+ 7950. The card commands about a $30 premium over the cheapest 7950s, putting it around $330, but it is supremely quiet and of high quality overall.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_7950_PCS_Plus/26.html
Click to expand...

His budget limit is $300 max so a GTX 670 or any kind (including reference) ain't gonna work. A GTX 660 Ti DCU II is $300. I'm also not going to recommend something I don't have an personal experience with. I know that HSF is whisper quiet, but if one wants an "expert" review this pretty much bears that out.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_660_Ti_Direct_Cu_II/27.html

You really can't get quieter than that. Plus its basically the same performance-wise compared to an HD 7950.
 
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ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II owner here... On 100% fans I can still barely hear it. It's an amazingly quiet card. I have no idea how they pulled it off
 
Jeffredo said:
His budget limit is $300 max so a GTX 670 or any kind (including reference) ain't gonna work. A GTX 660 Ti DCU II is $300. I'm also not going to recommend something I don't have an personal experience with. I know that HSF is whisper quiet, but if one wants an "expert" review this pretty much bears that out.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_660_Ti_Direct_Cu_II/27.html

You really can't get quieter than that. Plus its basically the same performance-wise compared to an HD 7950.
Click to expand...


You didn't read my post.

OP: A GTX 660 Ti is relatively poor value, and is definitely not "basically the same performance-wise compared to an HD 7950."

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/08/23/galaxy_gtx_660_ti_gc_oc_vs_670_hd_7950/3
 
Jeffredo said:
His budget limit is $300 max so a GTX 670 or any kind (including reference) ain't gonna work. A GTX 660 Ti DCU II is $300. I'm also not going to recommend something I don't have an personal experience with. I know that HSF is whisper quiet, but if one wants an "expert" review this pretty much bears that out.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_660_Ti_Direct_Cu_II/27.html

You really can't get quieter than that. Plus its basically the same performance-wise compared to an HD 7950.
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a 660 is definitely not as good as a 7950
 
PRogers86 said:
This guy:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...-na-_-na&AID=10440897&PID=3891137&SID=rewrite


Stock heatsink fan never goes above 38% of its speed. Practically silent. And overclocks easily to beat a 7970. Hands down a better deal than a 660ti.

This reviewer was blown away by the silence and cooling performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v5-3VlcA5Y
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^ This. Anandtech shows Sapphire's 7950 at 38 dba idle / 41 dba load while only reaching 64C (and hardocp reviewed 55C with their setup). Plus it's on sale right now along with a game bundle as the other poster mentioned. I'm also doing a quiet pc build with good thermals, and I chose this card coming from nvidia myself.


.
 
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wabbitseason said:
You seem to be price-conscious. So all these posters recommending the Asus DCII GTX 670 don't make a lot of sense; that's the most desired--and thus highest priced--670 out there. I've never seen it in stock anywhere. And the 670 is woefully overpriced compared to AMD's offerings to begin with. You will not be finding a DC2 for under $380.

The lowest you can hope to find a 670 for is $350. That's with a reference cooler which is sort-of-quiet.

You can find even non-reference 7950s for just under $300 all over the place. If you'd like a quiet one, I recommend the Powercolor PCS+ 7950. The card commands about a $30 premium over the cheapest 7950s, putting it around $330, but it is supremely quiet and of high quality overall.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_7950_PCS_Plus/26.html
Click to expand...
I donno, up here in cold Canada we saw the Asus DCII 670 at $303 for a brief time. I got one of my windforce 670's for $300cdn and I have seen it hit $330 a few times in the past month.

Laffles said:
ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II owner here... On 100% fans I can still barely hear it. It's an amazingly quiet card. I have no idea how they pulled it off
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gotta click "apply"
on 100% the fans roar.
 
Laffles said:
ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II owner here... On 100% fans I can still barely hear it. It's an amazingly quiet card. I have no idea how they pulled it off
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They were able to pull it off because the fans are pretty weak. In my case (no side fan) 100% fan speed will not keep the card from reaching the throttling point (70C) at full load. However I value the amazingly low noise while gaming versus a few Kepler Boost Mhz.

I had a ref GTX680 and at max fan speed it kept the temps in the low 60 C's at load, but of course it sounded like a jet engine and I'd never play a game with it running like that.

Overall I think Asus got the noise/cooling performance balance right on these cards.

Droc said:
gotta click "apply"
on 100% the fans roar.
Click to expand...

At 100% they become audible, but in no way loud and no where near the level of a reference card at max.

"While we were overclocking, we set our fans to 100% and thought there may have been something wrong because no noise came with it. We could not even hear the fans until we were within a foot of the video card. Even after temporarily stopping the two fans cooling our system, it was hard to hear the DirectCU II Cooling system doing work. This video card is silent, and did not add to the noise of the normal operating system's hum at all." - http://hardocp.com/article/2012/06/26/asus_geforce_gtx_670_directcu_ii_top_video_card_review/9
 
7950 seems to be the way to go, but some deals on 7970ghz editions have been cropping up so I wouldn't be too surprised if in the next few weeks there was one for sale for ~$300-340. A little high but the performance is there. I actually just picked up a 7970 ghz for $300 after cashback so it's possible.
 
Laffles said:
good one.... :rolleyes:

The fans don't 'roar' at all @ 100%, it's the reason I made my initial post. Why would I lie?
Click to expand...

Because your a big phony!
8a8a33fc-d19a-457d-abb5-e3a8f5f5b2ee.jpg

j/k

I used the 670 DCII once and cranked it and it was loud at 100% not nearly as loud as a reference, but it wasnt silent. I know the DCUII fans run quiet and slower then some. The gigabyte windforce for example, at 100% those fans go full tit to the wall.

One thing for sure, Asus hit one out of the park with the DCU coolers.
 
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