Fan Noise

In the past years users would accept everything just to get more performance. Nowadays this has changed with people being more aware of the fan noise and power consumption of their graphic cards.
In order to properly test the fan noise a card emits we are using a Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound level meter (~$4,000) which has the measurement range and accuracy we are looking for.


The tested graphics card is installed in a system that is completely passively cooled. That is passive PSU, passive CPU cooler, passive cooling on the motherboard and Solid-State HDD.
This setup allows us to eliminate secondary noise sources and test only the video card. To be more compliant with standards like DIN 45635 (we are not claiming to be fully DIN 45635 certified) the measurement is conducted at 100 cm distance and 160 cm over the floor. The ambient background noise level in the room is well below 20 dbA for all measurements. Please note that the dbA scale is not linear, it is logarithmic. 40 dbA is not twice as loud as 20 dbA. A 3 dbA increase results in double the sound pressure. The human hearing is a bit different and it is generally accepted that a 10 dbA increase doubles the perceived sound level.

Fan noise was my greatest concern when I heard about this card. Countless times I have seen board partners come up with low profile or slim version cards for media PCs that ship with completely unusable fan settings in the BIOS. A graphics for a media PC needs to be low-noise first of all.

PowerColor has mastered the first hurdle which is idle fan noise. During media playback (including full HD Blu-Ray decode) modern graphics cards consume very little power, which results in noise levels comparable to when they are in idle.

Under load however the fan spins up noticeably. It ends up being a bit too noisy for my taste, but we have to consider that this is a low profile design. There need to be some sacrifices.