Pretty much this ^^^ All of my higher class GPU's in past 6, 7 years had a coil whine at high load/fps. Some more, some less, sometimes it just masked behind the noise produced by fans inside the case but I don't care much because I'm often using headphones. F1refly posted a pic with list of cards with/without coil whine but: MSI GTX780 Lightning has a coil whine, I'm 100% sure it's there, not audible much but if you listen carefuly you can hear it for sure. On higher load it's there but well masked behind the noise produced by Lightning fans. Also there is connection between PSU's, air temperatures iside the case and GPU coil whine: higher temps often produce higher audible coil whine and with some PSU's coil whine is more audible, with other PSU's it's less audible. Never bothered much to do my own research about that. All in all it doesn't bothers me much, nice headphones or loud audio system masks coil whine no matter how loud it is
Random black screens (probably zero core related - that feature caused gpu temp reading issues in speedfan too), heat and ridiculously poor power saving when I ran my display at 75Hz. Performace wise 970 is noticeably better (I run mine at 1,5 GHz) while being much cooler and quieter. My 970 doesn't even hit 70c and I'm using rather conservative fan curve (less aggressive than stock). Also I missed few Nvidia driver features like superior TrAA settings and ability to enhance application MSAA to level you want.
I've never had any coil whine on any card I've ever owned, including my current Gigabyte Windforce 290x. Maybe I can't hear the frequency, but I can still hear other kinds of high pitched squeal - CRTs and some other electronics produce high-frequency noise I can pick up on. These are the 'recent' cards I've owned, no coil whine to speak of: 2x Asus 7850 HIS 4850 ??? x1950 Pro (dont remember the brand) MSI 6800 (non-ultra)
Thanks, asked out of curiosity. I've understood 290X and 970 trade blows pretty much depending on the game. Thankfully have had no issues with my Sapphire card and the Tri-X cooler is great. Gaming temps hover around 60-70 C depending on the load (and during normal Vsynced gaming no coil whine). This was my first AMD/ATI card in ages, the second one overall and the first Sapphire card ever. Now I wouldn't even consider another brand from the red side I think. Agreed though that I too miss the functionality of NV control panel/driver. If I were to go green again, that would be a big reason for it.
Embarrassing. I bought two cheap case fans. Their noises are enormous so I can't really tell if my R9 290 emits coil whine or not.
I bought a small one once, like a 60mm or something for a small enclosure and it sounded like a dentist drill. Nothing like turning your PC on and having cavity flashbacks.
Ah, I just ran the Futuremark Ice Storm 1.2 test and I heard very faint high pitched squealing, I had to turn my system fans to be as quiet as they could be and had my head right next to my pc while listening very carefully but it was there but frankly I'd consider it negligible as in normal operation it's not noticeable at all (I mean I had to really listen out for it).
^^ This. LA Punk since 1979..Too many shows, shooting and motorcycles without protection........My coil whine overshadows any electronic coil whine.....
