EVGA GTX 1070 SC - Is coil whine a real concern?

I've been looking at the EVGA GTX 1070 GAMING SC model because the cooler seems to be among the quietest, provides good and I like the design. It doesn't hurt that the price is very competitive where I live as well.

My one potential issue with this card is that I see a lot of complaints about coil whine with both the SC and FTW models from EVGA. Would you say this is a wide-spread issue that affects EVGA more than the average manufacturer?

I plan to use it with a Corsair RM750x mounted in a Fractal Design R5.

 

I sent mine back to EVGA due to coil whine, so my advice is to stay away from these models.

 

And you ruled out other factors such as the PSU and tried connecting the cable to a different outlet on your PSU if you have a modular one?

 

My SC has no cool whine. There are many things that can contribute to it. PSU, program running or chokes themselves on card. BTW any card will whine if it's rendering 400+ FPS.

 

Coil whine is the result of every manufacturer saving a few nickels per GPU. Higher quality inductors would mostly eliminate this issue.

 

I have the non-SC version and it's the most quiet card that I've ever had since GeForce 2 days. No coil whine and the max fan speed in 100% constant load has been ~1050 RPM (usually it's ~900 RPM or even lower). Overclocks nicely too.

FTW is totally different card than the SC and non-SC both of which are reference cards with ACX 3.0 cooler (which is a bit different than on FTW).

 

My $0.02, for what it's worth:

I RMA'd my 1st EVGA 970 over coil whine. The new card they sent me had a fair amount of whine too. I ended up giving that to my daughter and got an MSi 970. That MSi card does not whine. My current MSi 1070 doesn't whine either.

It's possible your chances of getting a card made with cheap capacitors (and the resulting coil whine) is higher with EVGA.

I used to always get EVGA cards. Their lifetime warranty used to be the best. Ever since they dropped that, I wonder if the quality of the components has dropped a bit too.

 

Yeah, people who get a card without a tendency to coil whine seem to be so happy with them. That's why I kind of want one.

Yes, I know that the SC and non-SC uses the reference board while the FTW uses a custom one. Based on what I've read it doesn't seem like the FTW cards are any less suceptible to coil whine so paying extra for it doesn't seem like the cure.

The problem is that I see complaints of coil whine for basically all of the GTX 1070 cards, regardless of manufacturer. Unfortunately people often don't provide enough details for their reports to be meaningful. For some, hearing a faint whine when putting their ear very close to the card with the case open while the card is rendering a menu at 1000-2000 fps or running a benchmark constitues an issue. Mixing those kind of "results" with legitimate complaints makes it hard to determine how widespread the issue actually is.

 

I've had extremely quiet(6 x 550RPM fans) water-cooled system for more than 8 years and I've switched 4 GPUs during that time.

The most quiet card was my GTX 580 (250W card!) which had no coil whine at all unless rendering 400FPS+ (loud high pitch whine). Even when it was running at 100% utilization with <100FPS, no audible sound at all.

So from my experience, the GTX 1080 FE definitely is not the quietest card:

1. When the card is running close to 200FPS with maximum utilization, like ROTTR benchmark, it's quite loud. Like a lot for my taste.

2. When I play with low utilization, FPS capped to 60, no sound at all. Completely quiet. Card usually runs up to 1600MHz.

3. When I play demanding games with high utilization capped to 60FPS, card is audible, but nothing serious. Can live with that. Card runs at full speed 2100MHz+.

4. Windows desktop, video, browsing... not audible. Don't hear anything at all.

So 1080s do have coil whine like every card. All of them do whine, some a little more some a little less. I've also had EVGA 1080SC and the coil whine was pretty similar to the FE.

 

I even tried my friend's PSU and nothing changed(A new PSU cannot eliminate the coil whine, it may reduce it a bit but that's it). So the card went back to EVGA.

 

Given that one of the causes of coil whine is a fluctuating 12V rail from the PSU, a different PSU can certainly eliminate the problem.

In your case it seems you ruled that out though but that doesn't mean it wasnät worth trying.

 

Every single EVGA I've ever got my hands on had coil whine. 660, 750 ti, 960.

Maybe I'm super unlucky but nowadays I avoid EVGA like the plague.

 

Had a lot of EVGA GPU,s some of them had coil whine Moved to MSI build quality seems to be a lot better my next cards will be MSI

 

Ok, based on the comments it seems like it may be a fairly common issue so I'll look at other cards.

Please continue to comment though if you want. I'm still interested in hearing other user's experiences regarding this.

 

I actually had to RMA my MSI GTX 970 Gaming because it had excessive coil whine. It was replaced with Gigabyte G1 which was much better regarding coil noises. Still, not as good as this GTX 1070.

 

My 1080 has pretty loud coilwhine during load but I thought most ppl had this problem.

 

Usually coil whine is there on any card, if you run some software at super high fps. I always limit all my games to 144fps ( my monitor refresh ratio ) and i never hear it, on my card i slightly can hear it above 250fps, however its pointless to run it that high.

 

None of my Gigabyte cards had any sort of coil whine, doesn't matter if the fps is in the 1000's or if the card is in load.

With that said, Gigabyte as of lately have been using cheap plastic in their fans etc a lot. But the actual electronic components are rock solid.

 

My 1070 has whine as well, even at 60 FPS. Though at 60 it's not really a whine but a buzz, it turns into a whine around 500 FPS.

Anyways i can't hear it from where i sit as my PC is under my Desk, so it doesn't bother me.

There is a possible way to get rid of Coil Whine from what i read, but it might not work for everyone. Running a game at 1000 FPS overnight for a couple of days has solved it for some people.

 

I have a G-sync monitor so my games are limited by default to 144fps. And still...I hear the whining.

Wtf, is this documented? Poor card.