GeForce GTX Titan preview

Posted by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 02/19/2013 02:56 PM [ 218 comment(s) ]

Graphics card noise levels

Graphics card noise levels

When graphics cards produce a lot of heat, usually that heat needs to be transported away from the hot core as fast as possible. Often you'll see massive active fan solutions that can indeed get rid of the heat, yet all the fans these days make the PC a noisy son of a gun. Do remember that the test we do is extremely subjective. We bought a certified dBA meter and will start measuring how many dBA originate from the PC. Why is this subjective you ask? Well, there is always noise in the background, from the streets, from the HDD, PSU fan etc, so this is by a mile or two an imprecise measurement. You could only achieve objective measurement in a sound test chamber.

The human hearing system has different sensitivities at different frequencies. This means that the perception of noise is not at all equal at every frequency. Noise with significant measured levels (in dB) at high or low frequencies will not be as annoying as it would be when its energy is concentrated in the middle frequencies. In other words, the measured noise levels in dB will not reflect the actual human perception of the loudness of the noise. That's why we measure the dBA level. A specific circuit is added to the sound level meter to correct its reading in regard to this concept. This reading is the noise level in dBA. The letter A is added to indicate the correction that was made in the measurement. Frequencies below 1kHz and above 6kHz are attenuated, whereas frequencies between 1kHz and 6kHz are amplified by the A weighting.

Examples of Sounds Levels

Jet takeoff (200 feet)	120 dBA
Construction Site	110 dBA	Intolerable
Shout (5 feet)	100 dBA
Heavy truck (50 feet)	90 dBA	Very noisy
Urban street	80 dBA
Automobile interior	70 dBA	Noisy
Normal conversation (3 feet)	60 dBA
Office, classroom	50 dBA	Moderate
Living room	40 dBA
Bedroom at night	30 dBA	Quiet
Broadcast sstudio	20 dBA
Rustling leaves	10 dBA	Barely audible

There's a lot of differences in measurements amongst websites. Some even place the dBA meter 10cm away from the card. Considering that's not where your ear is located, we do it our way.

For each dBA test we close the PC/chassis and move the dBA gun 75 cm away from the PC. Roughly the same proximity you'll have from a PC in a real-world situation. Above, the IDLE (desktop mode) results where the GPU hardly has to do anything.

The Idle results are really good.

One card in a fully stressed status (in-game) reaches roughly 40 dBA, now that remains normal to silent, it's not measured but under load you'll hear some airflow. Overall though, very nice low noise levels.

Aaaaand STOP

And that's where this article ends, sorry! Now we'll share the manufacturer suggested retail prices.

EUR 800 Ex VAT
GBP 827 Inc. VAT
USD 999 Inc. VAT

Once we can unleash the benchmark test sessions (on Thursday), you'll learn more about the performance figures of this product.

Update: the final reviews are ready, you can find them here:

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