Quietest GPU?

[flamebirdstudios]

So I just got my xfx 6970 in the mail and even with the fans at 50% it sounds like a jet. Are there any AMD cards that get good hash rates while not being super loud? Also I dont want it running hot all the time. It will be good in the winter, but right now Im just dying in my room cause of the temps. Thanks. Also let me know what card you are using, your hash rate, and the temps you manage to keep it on. Thanks!

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[Chronikka]

So I just got my xfx 6970 in the mail and even with the fans at 50% it sounds like a jet. Are there any AMD cards that get good hash rates while not being super loud? Also I dont want it running hot all the time. It will be good in the winter, but right now Im just dying in my room cause of the temps. Thanks. Also let me know what card you are using, your hash rate, and the temps you manage to keep it on. Thanks!

Every 6970 I've ever had is stupidly loud. I would suggest replacing the stock cooler. I use this one on my 6970s: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186052

I run the fans at 70% to keep the temperature around 70-75C under full load while mining. The fans are essentially silent. I could run them at 100% and maybe barely hear it over my case fans. But if you've ever owned an arctic made cooler you probably knew it would be quiet

[zackclark70]

7950 vapour x 600kh and nearly silent

[forevernoob]

Get a water cooled setup?

[Chronikka]

So I just got my xfx 6970 in the mail and even with the fans at 50% it sounds like a jet. Are there any AMD cards that get good hash rates while not being super loud? Also I dont want it running hot all the time. It will be good in the winter, but right now Im just dying in my room cause of the temps. Thanks. Also let me know what card you are using, your hash rate, and the temps you manage to keep it on. Thanks!

Every 6970 I've ever had is stupidly loud. I would suggest replacing the stock cooler. I use this one on my 6970s: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186052

I run the fans at 70% to keep the temperature around 70-75C under full load while mining. The fans are essentially silent. I could run them at 100% and maybe barely hear it over my case fans. But if you've ever owned an arctic made cooler you probably knew it would be quiet

So if I get this aftermarket cooler its much more silent than the stock one? Was it hard installing it? Im afraid of damaging my card. Im always up for trying something.

Oh yes MUCH quieter. Installation was a bit more tricky. If you read reviews on it the bad things to say are always the same, instructions suck and its a bulky heat sink. Which are both true. What makes it tricky is that it comes with miniature heat sinks that you use special thermal glue to adhere to the RAM and VRM circuits on the board. Those small heatsinks combined with the big one and two fans are what make it work so well...but also what makes it not so simple to install.

It takes 60 mins for the thermal glue they provide to cure, which just means you sit and watch it dry for an hour lol. Including the 60 minute wait time it took me about 90 mins total to install it

[Lethos]

There are some silent ones, since they are passively cooled GPU's in the 7750 & 7770 series I believe Sapphire made them. So without the fan it would be silent, but obviously the heatsink is huge for the GPU and of course it's not that powerful.
Otherwise you can go with Watercooling and go over the top on radiators and use really quiet fans and/or a fan controller to reduce the noise of them.

Water cooling is probably the best option, it's just more expensive, but means you can go for bigger cards yet still achieve silent operations if you get your setup right. For WC, the XSPC Razor water block is one of my favourite at the moment.

[Chronikka]

There are some silent ones, since they are passively cooled GPU's in the 7750 & 7770 series I believe. So without the fan it would be silent, but obviously the heatsink is huge for the GPU and of course it's not that powerful.
Otherwise you can go with Watercooling and go over the top on radiators and use really quiet fans and/or a fan controller to reduce the noise of them.

Water cooling is probably the best option, it's just more expensive, but means you can go for bigger cards yet still achieve silent operations if you get your setup right.

Water cooling is always the way to go if you need things totally silent. I water cool my CPU but just because they make easy to install kits for it that cost very little. But for the lower end GPUs (sub 7950) its just not necessary. 80C is a perfectly fine running temperature for a GPU and most stock heat sinks can do that no problem. The only reason for wanting to water cool a GPU is if you want complete silence and they run like $100 each just for the waterblock

[polarhei]

If entry-level, then quiet, but tou may not do this. If care, use oil or water to do this

[polarhei]

There are some silent ones, since they are passively cooled GPU's in the 7750 & 7770 series I believe. So without the fan it would be silent, but obviously the heatsink is huge for the GPU and of course it's not that powerful.
Otherwise you can go with Watercooling and go over the top on radiators and use really quiet fans and/or a fan controller to reduce the noise of them.

Water cooling is probably the best option, it's just more expensive, but means you can go for bigger cards yet still achieve silent operations if you get your setup right.

Water cooling is always the way to go if you need things totally silent. I water cool my CPU but just because they make easy to install kits for it that cost very little. But for the lower end GPUs (sub 7950) its just not necessary. 80C is a perfectly fine running temperature for a GPU and most stock heat sinks can do that no problem. The only reason for wanting to water cool a GPU is if you want complete silence and they run like $100 each just for the waterblock

Water is mainly for accoustic control if you like to run something in full load day by day. I think, if really serious, water is the only option

[notlist3d]

One thing I would worry about is quiet inst necessary a good thing lol.  If you are mining alt coins and want quiet go water cooling.  But that is a lot of effort and more important money going into it.   If you have any extra space put it there and dont worry about noise.

[yamancool63]

So I just got my xfx 6970 in the mail and even with the fans at 50% it sounds like a jet. Are there any AMD cards that get good hash rates while not being super loud? Also I dont want it running hot all the time. It will be good in the winter, but right now Im just dying in my room cause of the temps. Thanks. Also let me know what card you are using, your hash rate, and the temps you manage to keep it on. Thanks!

Every 6970 I've ever had is stupidly loud. I would suggest replacing the stock cooler. I use this one on my 6970s: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186052

I run the fans at 70% to keep the temperature around 70-75C under full load while mining. The fans are essentially silent. I could run them at 100% and maybe barely hear it over my case fans. But if you've ever owned an arctic made cooler you probably knew it would be quiet

So if I get this aftermarket cooler its much more silent than the stock one? Was it hard installing it? Im afraid of damaging my card. Im always up for trying something.

Oh yes MUCH quieter. Installation was a bit more tricky. If you read reviews on it the bad things to say are always the same, instructions suck and its a bulky heat sink. Which are both true. What makes it tricky is that it comes with miniature heat sinks that you use special thermal glue to adhere to the RAM and VRM circuits on the board. Those small heatsinks combined with the big one and two fans are what make it work so well...but also what makes it not so simple to install.

It takes 60 mins for the thermal glue they provide to cure, which just means you sit and watch it dry for an hour lol. Including the 60 minute wait time it took me about 90 mins total to install it

I bought my Diamond 6970 with this cooler on it from eBay. Runs SUPER quiet, keeps temps in the 60s under full load! Downsides: it is bulky. Doesn't really jive well with my SATA ports without a riser.

[crazyates]

I've heard you can put an Accelero aftermarket cooler for the 7970 on a 7770 and run it without the fans. Passive heatsink cooling FTW! Doesn't get much quieter than that.

[gushici]

Dual-fan is quiter than single-fan,
Large fan is quiter than small fan.
This is the rule I got.

[Damnsammit]

My 6950 is pretty quiet.  My 5850s sound like jet engines though.

[kuusj98]

asus DirectCUII coolers are silent, at least in my experience, and ive had quite a few...

[dmatthewstewart]

So, for someone that has never owned a gpu, is it accurate to say that most 7950's are fairly quiet? I am buying one this week for the first time and I definitely dont want a loud one.

[2jase]

So, for someone that has never owned a gpu, is it accurate to say that most 7950's are fairly quiet? I am buying one this week for the first time and I definitely dont want a loud one.

Nope.  Well, you can get them to be relatively quiet but only if you run them at lousy hash rates .  I've tried a bunch of different brands and none are actually quiet.  Remember that you're turning ~200W of power into heat on a tiny piece of silicon so it's going to get very hot and you're going to need a lot of airflow to cool it.  Airflow ~= noise.

My experience:
- XFX single fan 7950 sounds like a jet engine even at 50% fan. It's picky about overclocking and struggles to do 600KHs but needs tons of case cooling and it's still LOUD.
- Sapphire Vapor-X 7950 cools well, runs pretty fast, but doesn't handle undervolting well. Does about 630KH/s.
- Sapphire Dual-X 7950 cools pretty well, a bit louder than vapor-X and will do 670KH/s.
- MSI Dual Frozr 7950 is my favorite. Fans cool really well and it'll sustain 690KH/s. Still loud at that level but also stable.

I also have a Dual-X 7970 that'll do 730KH/s (it'll run 750KH for a day or so but crashes miserably, needing a hard reboot) but I'd stick with the MSI 7950s.  Also, I can't get my Sapphires to down-volt though I haven't tried loading new BIOS either.

Last comment: My 2-month old Vapor-X had a fan bearing fail the other day so it barely spins.  Amazon is sending me a replacement but this is the first GPU I've seen go bad so keep an eye on them.