i used to have a asus gtx-670 dcii and have since changed to a msi gtx-760 gaming. Is it just me or is the msi gtx-760 gaming not as quiet in idle as the asus gtx=670 dcii? I would say the msi gtx-760 gaming seems more quiet at full loud in games, but in idle i remember the asus being a bit more quite anyone else that can confirm that?

Thinking of finding a gtx-670 dcii and replacing my new msi gtx-760 gaming if it truly is more quiet when windows is idle.

Welcome to SPCR.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS ... II/27.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/ ... ng/26.html

1dB difference at idle...and I bet there's 1dB uncertainty/repeatability in the results.

i found it hard to believe if not impossible that my ears could even hear a 1db in difference but I could swear on it?

My system contains a 520w fanless power supply, hr macho rev a ty-147 running at 450rpm in idle in an antec solo II case.

for reverence I have to turn my ty-147 fan up to 850rpm (think thats around 14db@1m) before I can hear the system get louder over the msi gtx-760 gaming.

There's always variability in samples. Maybe your 670 was extremely quiet or your 760 is extremely loud. The MSI 760 in my system is certainly the loudest item @ 1000rpm idle. One day, I may pursue a hardware mod.....but not this week

Wondering why did you sell the 670, performance wise its so similar, and if you were already happy with it? if you feel its that different and you find it worth, go ahead, the card seems slightly quieter.

Long story short I built a complete system back in the fall that I had all kinds of issues that ultimately seem to be related to the power supply compatibility and asus z87-a board I had. The issues caused failure to boot with a red cpu led. I ended up exchanging and returning items one by one until I could figure out what was causing the system to be unstable. By December I was frustrated and ready to sell everything off. Now a few months later I see some folks have finally resolved the issue by changing power supply brands.

So in the past few weeks I ordered a different brand power supply "seasonic" and since I couldn't find a new gtx-670 for a reasonable price I picked up the msi gtx 760 gaming for 250 at frys.

I think I'm gonna stick it out with the msi gtx-760.. It's running great and seems more quiet under load than the asus gtx-670 i had. Looking at the numbers it seems the asus gtx-670 prob wasn't much more quiet in idle so that prob was just in my poor memory.


Now if I can just get the msi gtx-760 to idle below 34% or 980rpm it would be even better!

The fans are limited by the cards bios to 30%.
You could flash the bios with a lower value.
Or y+ou could swap the fan for another TY147 with this adapter and attach it with zip ties.

Tried modified bios and noticed fan min in current bios is set to 20% so the lower 34% limit
didn't work. I modified it to 10% lower limit and still will not go below 34%. I suspect there must be some kinda min rpm setting that is keeping it from going below 34%? My rpm is around 1050. I'd like to get that down to 800 if possible.

I did read multiple times than the usual BIOS safety is around 30%.

Wish I had an oscilloscope to view the fan voltage waveform...is it a true PWM signal? Does it turn 12V on/off? Some other voltage?

Thought it might be interesting to make a fan extension cable with 2 or 3 diodes inserted to drop the supplied voltage a bit. Assuming the fan integrates the supplied voltage by the PWM percentage..If the fans idle at 12V=30%=1000rpm, then a ~2.1V drop implies 9.9V=> ~25% => 825rpm.

No, you aren't wrong: the MSI Twin Frozr is slightly more noisy at idle than the ASUS DC-II sported by the first generation Keplers (I have had the same feel comparing an ASUS GTX660 and your MSI GTX760).

And again no, you can't do anything but an hardware mod (either swapping the cooler, or downvolting its fans, and it's a lot easier the first way, by far).

You know now that I have had it more to evaluate this is what i am thinking.

The idle noise of the msi gtx-760 might be just as low db wise between the two cards but appears to have more of a higher frequency sound associated with turbulence. The card howls a bit in idle if that makes since. The asus gtx-670 never howled in idle but did howl much more loudly under load.

I will say without a doubt the msi top load noise is better than the asus was while the asus idle speed was quiet with no howl/turbulance

My theory is that the msi card is longer and has two 100mm fans opposed to the asus 80mm ones and shorter size. The longer msi card and larger fans put out more air volume at same rpm and at load dont require as high of rpm to keep card cool resulting in lower load noise levels.

So when the asus gtx-670 was running idle at 1000rpm and the msi at 1000rpm the msi was just creating enough air to create turbulence and howling. When the asus fan ramped up above 1200rpm the howling appeared and got noticly louder as the asus ramped up to 1800rpm. For reference the msi ramps up to 1478rpm


So pick your poison. Higher load levels with asus or higher idle levels with msi.

Seems like to get the best of both worlds the Msi card would be the one to mod?

You may also try to run a DC-II cooler at low rpm under load (you'll get worse temp): it should be a lot easier.

Broadly speaking the question is really complex, indeed, and the very same cards "sound" different as in different enclosures.
When I was looking for a GTX-650Ti I bought a MSI PE Cyclone and an ASUS DC-II OC (both 1Gb cards): the MSI "sounded" better than the ASUS in an Antec Solo, while the DC-II latter "sounded" better than the Cyclone in a NSK-3480 (and the ASUS is fairly longer than that MSI).

Since the OP seems to not have gotten ideal results and there still was some talk about modding, I'll add my experience from about 1 year ago.
I got a standard evga gtx 670, with that horrible cooler but with a nice heatsink on the VRMs, that I kept. Put an Accelero mono plus on it,
but found that the fan wasn't going below 30% which was about 900 rpm idle and 1000 rpm load, unacceptably loud for me.
Replaced the fan with a 14 cm Scythe Slipstream (zip tied) which gave good temps but couldn't turn below 600 rpm with my fan controller.
Tested several 14 cm fans (solo, not on the mono plus), all non-pwm, but didn't find one that dropped low enough with the controller without stalling.
Settled for a 14 cm Shadow wings 1000 rpm pwm fan, with a 4 pin adapter, that spins at 330 rpm idle, and I'm happy with that.
I had to remove the case mountings in order to zip tie it, and it's not cooling quite as well as the Slipstream at the same rpm, but it's OK for me.
Oh, and the mono plus on the cards looks ugly, so no pics.

Interesting. I was able to eliminate the high pitched fan turbulance howling sound by increasing the min fan in afterburner from 34% to 38%. Think this increases rpm by about 125rpm but not sure how much more spl it generates.

So I got the idea I would flash the card to set the min fan to 38% using the kepler bios tweaker. It didnt work and the min auto fan stayed at 34% which tells me fan bios control just doesn't work using the kepler bios tweaker on the 760

(As also for the maximum fan speed) You can use a custom fan profile with Afterburner executed at PC start, in order to set the new min at 38%.

Yeah I did that and its working. Looked at the rpm numbers and it increased rpm by by only 60rpm from 1020-1050 on avg to 1080 to 1110 on avg. the noise level doesn't appear to go up
Much at all and without the howling sounds much better.

So I finally found gtx-670 card new and have installed it. Compared to the msi gtx-760 it is quieter in idle. I would say the asus gtx-670 is 2 to 3db quieter in idle. I also confirmed the msi gtx-70 card is much quieter under load. The asus gtx-670 dual 80mm fans idle between 1050 and 1110rpm and maxed at 2300rpm under load. The msi gtx-760 100mm fans idled at 1020-1080rpm idle and under load 1450rpm.

I saw another post on silentpc that was very informative. The author said to take the fan mm and multiply it by the rpm. So say fan 100mm x 1000rpm = 100000. Anyway he said anything below 90000 is inaudoble and anything above it you just start to hear it. Msi 100mm fan x 1000rpm = 100000 idle. Asus 80mm x 1000rpm = 80000 idle. Msi 100mm x 1450rpm load = 145000
asus 80mm x 2400rpm = 192000 load. Pretty neat formula.

My setup and load calcs excluding video card
I have a thermalright 140mm fan that runs at 550rpm idle = 77000
With a fanless powersupply and 2 noiseblocker 120mm fans at 500rpm = 60000
1 antec true quiet 140mm fan at 550rpm = 77000

Man, that's like a 40mm fan at above 5k RPM. How can you stand it?

That assumption in my experience is plainly false.