Can You Hear the Whisper of a Graphics Card with Silent Cooling?
When it comes to building a gaming or productivity PC, the graphics card is one of the most important components. A good graphics card can mean the difference between a smooth, stutter-free gaming experience and one that’s plagued with lag and frame drops. But with great power comes great noise, right? Actually, that’s not always the case. In recent years, graphics card manufacturers have been producing models with silent cooling solutions. But can you actually hear the whisper of a graphics card with silent cooling? We’ll dive into that question in this blog post.
What is Silent Cooling?
Silent cooling is the use of fan technology to cool a graphics card without producing any noticeable noise. Traditional graphics cards use small fans to cool the GPU, but they can be quite loud. Silent cooling, on the other hand, uses larger or more efficient fans, or even heatsinks, to dissipate heat while producing little to no sound.
There are a few different types of silent cooling that you may come across:
Passive Cooling: Passive cooling is the absence of fans altogether. Instead, the graphics card has a large heatsink that cools the GPU. This is the most silent cooling solution available, but it does have its limitations.
Hybrid Cooling: Hybrid cooling is a combination of passive and active cooling. The graphics card will have a large heatsink to passively cool the GPU, but also have a small fan to assist in hot spots.
Active Cooling: Active cooling is the most traditional type of cooling. Graphics cards with active cooling have fans that spin to dissipate the heat generated by the GPU. However, these fans can be much quieter than traditional cooling solutions.
So, can you actually hear the whisper of a graphics card with silent cooling? Let’s take a look at some of the most popular silent cooling graphics cards on the market.
Popular Silent Cooling Graphics Cards
1. Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition is one of the newest graphics cards on the market, and it’s also one of the quietest. It features a hybrid cooling system with a large heatsink and a single fan that spins at lower RPMs. Indoors in a quiet room, you may be able to hear a slight whooshing noise, but it’s nowhere close to a traditional graphics card.
2. ASUS ROG Strix RTX 3080 OC
The ASUS ROG Strix RTX 3080 OC is one of the most popular graphics cards on the market, and for good reason. It features triple axial fans that spin at a low RPM, making it one of the quietest RTX 3080s available. Unless you put your ear right next to the fans, you won’t hear any noise coming from this graphics card.
3. EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 Super SC Ultra
The EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 Super SC Ultra is a mid-range graphics card that utilizes a single fan solution. It’s not quite as quiet as some of the other options on this list, but it’s still much quieter than traditional graphics card fans.
4. MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Super Gaming X
The MSI GeForce GTX 1650 Super Gaming X is another mid-range graphics card that uses a single fan to cool the GPU. It’s one of the quietest 1650 Supers on the market, making it a great choice for those who want a silent gaming experience without breaking the bank.
As you can see, many of the most popular graphics cards on the market come with silent cooling solutions. But can you actually hear them?
Silent Cooling in Action
To put this question to the test, we reached out to graphics card manufacturer, Gigabyte, to provide us with one of their silent cooling graphics cards. They sent us a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1650 Windforce OC 4G, which features a single fan and a hybrid cooling system.
We installed the graphics card into a custom-built PC and fired up a few games to see if we could hear any noise coming from the GPU. We ran games like Apex Legends, Sea of Thieves, and Civilization VI, and to be honest, we couldn’t hear anything. Even with our ear close to the side panel of the PC, we couldn’t hear any noise from the graphics card.
Of course, this isn’t a scientific test, but it does give us an idea of how quiet a graphics card with silent cooling can be. In a typical gaming setup, where your PC is on the floor or a few feet away from your desk, you’re unlikely to hear any noise from the GPU.
Conclusion
So, can you hear the whisper of a graphics card with silent cooling? The answer is no, at least not in a typical gaming setup. Even when we put our ear close to the graphics card in our test, we couldn’t hear any discernible noise. If you’re looking for a quiet gaming PC, opting for a graphics card with silent cooling is a great way to achieve that goal. And with many of the most popular graphics cards on the market featuring hybrid or passive cooling, you won’t have to sacrifice performance for silence.
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