Gigabyte GTX 580 SOC Quiet?

[Diancecht]

Greeting all,

I'm about to order a Gigabyte GTX 580 SOC and wondered if they were silent or quiet at idle?

I use my PC for games and work so I really want to try and get a good quality, powerful card but quiet at idle for work purposes. I could of gone for a reference 580 card but there isnt much difference in price.

Anyone that owns one that could give me some advice and their opinions on the card?

Cheers

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome.

I do not own one of these cards so my information is purely second hand from prevous comments on the forum  but don't expect the card to be silent at idle. Not just this card but most cards are not what I would call silent even if fairly quiet. I do know that there have been comments about this not being as quiet as they are advertised to be.

Often these cards can be made to run even quieter by altering the profiles that are used.

Hopefully someone who actually has the card can give you first hand experience of it.

[Diancecht]

thanks for the quick reply & warm welcome

I dont expect it to be completely silent but I would like it if I couldnt hear it over the rest of my PC case fans, I own a xfx ati reference 5870 so if it's on par with what i have at the moment noise wise I'll be a happy bunny

just hope its not too loud though, I had a old nvidia graphics card back in the day that sounded like a jet was taking off in my room and I havent touched a nvidia card since (this will be my first in many years)

Just a have a couple more questions...

If I overclock my card will it still be covered under their warranty and if i have any trouble with it do Gigabyte deal with it or the place where i bought it from?

Where is Gigabyte's RMA centre located and do they have good customer service as I've never had anything from them before but had bad experiences from other component manufacturers such as XFX (maybe not the best place to ask on a official gigabyte forum for biased views)

[Dark Mantis]

Hey, we are completely unbiased! I am sure that Gigabyte would agree with that too.

This forum whilst the official Gigabyte forum is run fairly much by us volunteers who are nothing to do with the company. There is a company employee (runn3R) who is the Administrator but that is all.

Overclocking isn't a problem as long as no customisations are carried out. If you change the cooler or something like that then you are on your own.

The standard way of RMAing a card is to return it to the retailer. However Gigabyte will accept returns directly as long as it is in the same country of origin. They are located in Milton Keynes.

As I said I haven't got one of these cards but I do believe they are fairly quiet and not like your old card. You can alter the noise a great deal with the use of profiles.

[Diancecht]

thanks, thats great knowing their RMA centre is in the UK   

[Dark Mantis]

They are also very good to be fair. I have only used them once personally but I couldn't fault the service. 

[Diancecht]

Hopefully I wont need to contact them but by going on everyone's posts on the forum about 560/570 & 580 SOC versions crashing because of voltage problem i might need to... kind of regretting ordering one now as overclockers uk arent the best company to deal with for returns (only got it there because they had a fantastic deal on this particular card)

[Dark Mantis]

I really can't comment on that particular retailer! I have heard other people say a similar thing though. As you say if the deal is great it is hard to go somewhere else to make the purchase isn't it?

[Diancecht]

Just got my card and it's a little louder than my old Ati 5870 card, I wondered if anyone could tell me the best program to use to check the fan speed in RPM?

Cheers

[Dark Mantis]

You can always use MSI Afterburner or Combuster.

[Aussie Allan]

  20/20 hind sight is a powerful thing.....for a few pounds more......Scan and Aria have a outstanding after sale service....just for next time

  Aussie Allan

[Diancecht]

I normally buy from Scan but had a bad experience with a graphics card I bought from them.

I sent them it back to be fixed in its original box with accesories and wires as requested but they told me it couldnt be fixed and they would send me a new one out. I recieved the new card 7 weeks later after lots of phone calls in a plain cardbox box without anything I sent them except the card. You could tell the card was used as it had dust on the fan. I only had the card for 2 months before having problems with it again.

I try to buy most of my items from amazon now as their RMA service is fantastic but alot of the time they dont have the items in stock.

Next time I'll give Aria a try though

[Aussie Allan]

  Thanks for the info!........

  Aussie Allan

[Dark Mantis]

That is where a lot of retailers fall down. They offer a great service as far as purchasing the items goes but miss the mark badly if a problem occurs. People are not stupid and they should stop trying to treat them as such.

[mycrus]

i can't hear them over my case fans... even when fan speed is at 100%

these cards are great but like any aftermarket cooling non reference card - you cannot sandwich SLI them... it will overheat...

i wanted to do 3-way SLI with these cards, but it ended up overheating...

the great thing is that with good aircooling you can bring these babies up to 950MHz and 2-way SLI at this crazy overclock will beat any 3-way non OC!