What GPU whines the most?

[Canned Noodles]

My current 3090 has noticeable coil whine, primarily noticeable when its under load and the fans haven’t kicked in yet, like when I’m loading up a game. Not a problem with the loud-ass fans drowning it out
I got an Arc A770 a couple months ago and its coil whine was less noticeable.
On a side note, either my SSD or mobo produce audible coil whine during CrystalDiskMark tests

 

[3DVCash]

My MSI GTX 560 Ti 2BG (remember when AIBs could add more VRAM? ) SLI setup always had an audible buzz. (5/10)
I had an EVGA GTX 670 and PNY GTX 780 that were pretty quiet. (2/10)
MSI GTX 780 Ti was also a whiner. (5/10)
I've owned an MSI GTX 750 and later GTX 1650 that were both dead silent. (0/10)
Had an Asus RTX 3070 Ti Strix that had some of the worst coil whine I've heard out of the box, but it seemed to lessen with use. (7/10 -> 4/10)
And I'll let you know about my MSI RTX 4080 when it arrives!

 

[Vayra86]

EVGA GTX 660 SC x2... whined in SLI, if you could hear it over the two blowers desperate to allow kepler boost to happen.

MSI GTX 770, no whine
GB GTX 780ti. Moderate whine but also when way under full load
MSI 1080 Gaming X. Only whines at excessive FPS numbers
ASRock RX7900XT PG. Same as 1080.

Older cards, I honestly dont know and didnt care.

 

[hat]

TBH most of my coil whine was with shittier PSUs.

Nobody take offense to that, please, but when I started way overpowering systems with beastly PSUs, coil whine was non-existant.

I think this definitely has something to do with it. I remember way back in the day, I had a crappy Allied 300w power supply and an FX 5200 Ultra. One Christmas, I received a nice XFX 6800XT, and an Antec Smartpower 2.0 500w to power it. That power supply had some terrible whine while running the 6800XT, but if I put the FX 5200 Ultra back in, no whine. This really prompted me to get more serious about PC hardware at the time, and my next upgrade was a Corsair VX450w power supply. These days, where it counts, I would stick to Seasonic, FSP, or Silverstone.

 

[Ivan Bliminse]

Whine..... I can't distinguish any noise from any specific part on my pc due to tinnitus..?!

 

[xtreemchaos]

me too ,i think i must have a ear problem because i carnt remember having a card with coil whine or do i have a bad memory "prob a bit of both" .

 

[Ferrum Master]

All recent cards that consume more than 200W uncapped will produce coil whine. It just depends on how loud it is. That depends on many factors. Phase count, VRM, part quality. Whining is caused by inductors and MLCC caps. You have to design you PCB with mitigations for those anomalies to reduce resonance. It usually ain't done.

You will not hear it if -
1. Your card is under 150W, despite noting or you are always vsynced, thus putting power cap.
2. You have hearing problems.
3. Your ambient noise is so loud, it gets muffled.

Some read.

MLCC solutions for suppressing acoustic noise in the battery lines of laptop computers | Ceramic Capacitor | Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

MLCC solutions for suppressing acoustic noise in the battery lines of laptop computers

www.murata.com

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

In the other hand I did have a low pitched whiny 650W MWE Gold Cooler Master PSU years ago that whined even when my PC was off so I had to completely power off my system every night else I could hear that damn thing even in my bed.. 'That crap died on me in 2 years and the r/etailer gave me back my money at least'

Sounds like a bad cap for the 5V standby! Just like one night with my 2005 Antec SmartPower 2.0 500W in 2011, before pulling the cover off to find a bulged cap! I would hear it mostly when the house was very quiet and the PC was off, but still standby power from the PSU.

 

[hat]

Oh wow, another owner of a problematic Antec Smartpower 2.0. Shocking!

 

[BicycleBicycle]

There is no one answer to your question OP.

Since the whine itself is the result of high frequency vibrations of the inductor coil from high current flow, the sound it transmits will also be representative of those high frequencies. Everyone will perceive the audible sound differently, sometimes not at all. The higher the power draw, higher the current, stronger the magnetic field = higher probability of the coils vibrating at audible frequencies. There's a lot of inductors on high powered cards. It only takes one.

What may be inaudible to me, could be minor for some and annoying for others.

One thing to keep in mind is this is not harmful to the card. It's more of an annoyance. People interested can look up Electromagnetically induced acoustic noise (esp. in passive components) and read up on it. If it's something that interests them.

 

[Dragam1337]

Of all gpu's i've had (and i've had many) none come close to the asus 4090's in regards to coilwhine... absolutely obnoxious. And i've had 3 different ones, all had it. The 2 gigabyte 4090s haven't had any coilwhine - worse cards in every other way though.

 

[R-T-B]

There isn't a fixed trend where "x brand will certainly whine the most."

The one that whines the worst will vary substantially in user reports, honestly. It's just luck of the draw.

 

[P4-630]

GPU's I've had in the past that whined iirc, HD 3850 and a HD 4870.

All other GPU's I had after that didn't have this issue.

 

[BicycleBicycle]

Of all gpu's i've had (and i've had many) none come close to the asus 4090's in regards to coilwhine... absolutely obnoxious. And i've had 3 different ones, all had it. The 2 gigabyte 4090s haven't had any coilwhine - worse cards in every other way though.

I don't know where ASUS sources their inductors from but they do seem more prone to vibrations. They're also usually in a larger molded housing so I question if it's actually a fully injected mold.

I've fixed several noisy inductors in past for friends and fam by simply using thin "Super Glue", that stuff fixes everything lol. I wouldn't dare doing that on $1600+ cards though.

 

[Dragam1337]

There isn't a fixed trend where "x brand will certainly whine the most."

The one that whines the worst will vary substantially in user reports, honestly. It's just luck of the draw.

Wrong - asus is notorious for coilwhine, and it's especially true with the 4090s.

I don't know where ASUS sources their inductors from but they do seem more prone to vibrations. They're also usually in a larger molded housing so I question if it's actually a fully injected mold.

I've fixed several noisy inductors in past for friends and fam by simply using thin "Super Glue", that stuff fixes everything lol. I wouldn't dare doing that on $1600+ cards though.

I've read reports that asus source from 3 different suppliers - 2 of them have varying degrees of terribad coilwhine, and 1 doesn't appear to have any coilwhine. If true then the fix for asus seems rather simple - unless they just don't give a fack about customers getting cards with coilwhine, which i very much think is the case... otherwise they would surely have done something about it at this point.

 

[R-T-B]

Wrong - asus is notorious for coilwhine, and it's especially true with the 4090s.

My point is regardless of trend, there is no guarantee as to what an individual card may do. Still I suppose calling out the worst offenders could prove useful.

 

[Lew Zealand]

And it's not even which card but as Ferrum Master mentioned, it's under which conditions. My PColor RDragon 6800 XT doesn't whine, it's silent.

Unless I force it like doing the Night Raid test in 3DMark. Whines like a banshee at 800fps and especially at 1400fps under that condition. Under all other tested conditions and while gaming, I hear nothing.

 

[delshay]

Never really experience it, then again I tend to mod my cards & PSU with lower leakage or lower ESR capacitors, so I don't know if these are having an effect on coil whine. however It does show up on scope-meter noise lever is reduced.

 

[freeagent]

My 4070Ti.. no whine. My 3070Ti has a little, but not bad.. can only hear when fps is in the thousands. I don't think my 980 Classy has any. My Asus 580 Matrix Platinum is pretty bad iirc.

 

[3DVCash]

Sooo, got my MSI 4080 installed... zero whine! Not only that, this thing is dead silent.

I thought my 3070 Ti Strix was quiet, but I literally can't hear these fans spin up. My Silent Wings Pro 4s are louder, and I have them capped at 1200rpm...