It's a train!

http://www.guru3d.com/news/geforce-gtx-480-noise-levels-debunked/
- Not debunked. When I read it was loud and was like a car, I thought they were exaggerating (they=reviewers). But they were really serious, it's a freaking train!

Guru3D. I think maybe they are being paid by Nvidia. Noise level isn't that bad, 45 DB at 10 ft away from the card?!?!?!? Also the moron doesn't know how to measure sound. The sound measurement are measured at source, not 10 ft away from source.

So the claims of 60-70dB seem to be correct. Just for reference, if you listen above 80dB for more than 5 minutes, you can start to suffer permanent hearing damage.
- Hearing loss also usually attributed to longevity. So even listening to 45 dB for say hours and hours, your ears will feel fatigued. Maybe not damaged, but you will know it and your ears will be angry at you.

It sounds like a train....

 

probably is. That kind of volume even when idle is near intolerable... sounds like a plane from inside an airport.

 

Yes... I think Guru3D didn't address that many PC users leave their PC on 24/7. Even laptop users keep them on, I let mine do encoding, etc. overnight.

 

The GTX 480 is very loud for a graphics card. It also takes a lot of power.

If you want to compare sound levels between two cards, as long as you measure them at the same distance, the comparison should be valid. In general, I guess sound levels are generally compared at the source, but that is just for convenience and ease of testing (testing standard).

So if the card produces 60 dB at the source, and you are 10 feet away, you aren't experiencing 60 dB, you are experiencing 45 dB, which is a giant difference. It is the difference between being in a relatively quiet room versus someone talking to your face, neither of which are associated with hearing loss. Claiming near-hearing-loss levels of noise is just as much a joke as them saying the noise level of the card is acceptable.

- It looks like the noise level of the card is laughable
- It will not cause hearing damage or "ear fatigue", but it will likely be annoying

5 minutes at 85 dB is not likely to cause hearing loss, you would need extended exposure at that dB level to cause hearing loss. When is the last time you mowed the lawn? That's about 90 dB. Once you start going higher than that, you can be at risk. 95-100 dB for a few minutes is not a great idea. You have to keep in mind that the dB scale is a log scale, so 80 dB isn't really close to 90 dB, and 45 dB and 60 dB are leagues apart.

 

I've never seen a desktop that far away from a person with they way he tested Most people's monitor cable isn't that long... it's directly right below or right on the desk...

You may want to read about hearing loss. 75 dB is about as high you want to go for safe levels. 45dB vs highest of 75dB is what I was trying to convey here.

Health officials say safe hearing levels for constant noise should be below 45db. Throw that out the window with the GTX480.

This is about as loud as a loud refrigerator. Except usually the refrigerator is in the corner of kitchen, not right next to you constantly. This would fatigue most normal people's ears. And most gamers play for a few hours at a time, having this right next to them, if your ears aren't fatigued, then you are one lucky person!

You are guaranteed hearing loss just from aging. Why do ANYTHING to try to accelerate it when you don't have to. 45dB just from a graphics card is unacceptable in my life. Especially since I do use a PC constantly for my music, my movies, gaming, keeping in contact, I do use Skype, VoIP etc.

Gamers are reporting btw for SLI, it's even worse. 95C at IDLE!!!

 

my gosh...that is some insane temps. Anyone good at Photoshop make a stove with a GTX 480 pic? and does the sound level double if in SLI?

 

Holy moley, run a 3DMark06 benchmark on there and literally cook some breakfast over your card when you open the case, like the Grillbox 360.

 

correct. repped
inb4 sli 480 runs at 100db.

 

Wait a second here... where are you taking your sources ? Because you're spreading out nonsense.

First, the tests show noise levels for this GPU under heavy load of 45dB at 75cm (2 feet and something). It's close enough to a real life situation. If 45dB is too loud, then we have to ban schools and colleges because those environments are louder than this. And once again, the decibels follow a logarithmic scale, so 85dB is nowhere near 45dB.

In the UK, the health regulations say that hearing protections have to be offered if the worker is exposed to more than 85dB on average on a period of 8 hours and are mandatory when you reach 90dB on average.

Here are the permissible (average) sound levels according to the US regulations. They're probably a bit too lax but still...

90 dbA: 8 hrs
92 dbA: 6 hrs
95 dbA: 4 hrs
97 dbA: 3 hrs
100 dbA: 2 hrs
102 dbA: 1.5 hrs
105 dbA: 1 hr
110 dbA: 0.5 hr
115 dbA: 0.25 hr or less

cfr: http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=standards&p_id=9735

The WHO has guidelines about noise at work. Their concerns start at 85dB (for a prolonged exposition): "An occupational exposure limit of 85 dB for 8 hours should protect most people against a permanent hearing impairment induced by noise after 40 years of occupational exposure."
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs258/en/index.html

 

When is the last time you sat 10' from your desktop, though? Most people have theirs under or even on the desk, maybe 3-5' away.

Either way, this is a stupidly loud card. It may not cause hearing damage, but would you really want to play games with a vacuum running in the room?

 

70 dB? 95 at idle?

I guess they expect everyone to buy a pair of noise canceling headphones and use a liquid cooling system. God forbid the day that this card is available in laptops...

 

I totally agree that the graphics card is stupidly loud. But the truth is, it isn't going to cause hearing loss. That claim is more outlandish than the "45 dB is OK for a graphics card" claim made by the reviewers. It just isn't the right ballpark of sound intensity for that.

 

i'm staying away from this... lol that's too loud and hot... anyways , don't the SLI idle temps seem too high? I thought the load temps for SLI were 95C...

 

lol at the "stress" test. running furmark in that tiny box isnt going to make a decent GPU break a sweat much less a 480.

 

That's why us cool people (pun intended) use liquid cooling. It's a bit more expensive, more matenince, but a lot quieter.