GTX 280 - How is the noise?

[Smitty]

For those of you with 280s already...how is the idle and load noise? Some of the reviews have mentioned that it is really noisy.

[spajdr]

Idle is very quiet, and under load, well, its hearable, but i wont call it very noisy, its nothing like 2900XT fan :)

[bmg]

I was a little worried about noise too, but my evga 280 FTW seems fine. After reading Tom's review where they made a big deal about the noise, I was worried. I checked out a lot of other reviews and it didn't seem like a big deal for the others. I got mine this morning from Newegg and I'm loving it.

[spajdr]

I guess it also matters how is your temp in case, less airflow, more heat and faster spinning fan :)

[Smitty]

Phew! I just read Tom's review and got a little worried. I'm looking at getting the 280 FTW as well. Thanks!

[Revs]

Anyone got a 260? It should run a little cooler, therefore quieter. Can anyone confirm this?

[Maverickman]

Idle is quiet, yes. You will be able to hear the fan when playing games like Crysis, but it isn't really annoying. You have to realize that the fans on high-end cards will make some noise. However, the 8800 GTX was a glaring exception to this!

[visualguy]

I just got the GTX 280. It was quiet before I started running a game (Crysis). During the game, it started making noise (as expected), and a lot of hot air was coming out of the vents on the second slot occupied by the card. I was surprised by how hot this air was.

Unfortunately, the fan doesn't seem to go back to normal speed once the load and the temperature go down, so it keeps making noise. I stopped playing Crysis about half an hour ago. The fan is still running fast and noisy, while the air coming out of the card is not hot anymore. There seems to be some bug with the fan control either in the card BIOS or the driver.

[Lfctony]

Damn this thing is loud compared to my 8800GTX... When I first got my 8800GTX, I actually had to put my hand over the fan the first few days, just to check if it was working...

[Monolyth]

I'm currently case-less as I enjoy the freedom to switch out case parts quickly, etc.

Anyways even when playing CoD 4 for hours on end @ 1920x1080, 4xAA, 8xAF, + Everything maxed in options, I never heard it, not once.

Watch in EVGA Precision Tool here were my temps:
Ambient Temp: 23C
Idle: 44-46C
Load: 74-78C

90% of the time I had a 40% Fan Cycle, sometimes it would pop to 54% or so, after doing so my Load temps would drop back to 74C (from 78C). It never hit 100% and was very quiet, never once heard it whilst playing even when I took off my headphones.

Going to give the card some time to burn-in before I look at overclocking it.

[Dreamingawake]

i have m fan speed manually set at 70% and it doesn't bother me one bit..

don't think it's much louder than my case fan..