Hi all,
Just wanted to report that I had sent EVGA's support email a request with my card's model number and the lower speed fan for the 6GB "SC", and they replied the next morning.
I had a good chance to try out 01.60 over a few days and it seems to be a good compromise between completely quiet and high speed (noise) all the time with corresponding shorter fan life. But I can see the reasoning behind using different versions depending on your application. On a particular game of mine, I went from a high of 75°C to a high of 67°C.
00.62 The new stock BIOS, good if you're running a HTPC and need silence over performance, and don't mind a little throttling.
01.60 The optional BIOS from EVGA, runs 600-700 RPM at all times and is a good compromise between better performance and a little fan wear when idle. It'll be interesting to see if this throttles at all in the winter months (when the room temp is colder).
00.60 The original BIOS that had aggressive fan speeds and was used in a lot of the original reviews. Probably still OK if you are using your card in a hot case and should fix that, but for now this will help keep more air moving.
I have this card in a really large full ATX case, so your numbers might vary...