gtx 980 acx cooling
 
So I have a 144hz monitor and I need to obviously try to take advantage of that refresh rate as it's what I've paid for. When i get to "high" frame rates i can hear some coil whine and i'm not sure what's the issue as from what I've read these cards are sensitive to how the power is delivered to them. 
 
So here are the components I have that deliver power to the card :)
Asrock z77 extreme 6
EVGA G2 850w
 
Does anybody else use this mobo and have this issue?

I went through 10 980s and 2 PSUs before I gave up. Good luck.

jeffmd
Coil whine is simply the components on the card working normally. Alot of devices have the issue today as we reach the limits on certain components. No way to fix it until we redesign the component to reduce the noise. 

It's not really about reaching the component's limits due to current technology. It's more about NVIDIA choosing to push those components to their limits so they can make more profit instead of using more or better components. If they (NVIDIA's engineers) threw in a couple more power phases to lower the load through each phase and thus change the duty cycle and shift the frequency of any noise which is emitted, we wouldn't have so many people complaining about NVIDIA's design decision. It's simply about greed and customer's decision to accept the product in its current form -- or pay more for a better designed "non-reference" card.

As it stands currently, it is "normal" behavior for a "reference" (NVIDIA-designed card) and customers just have to accept it; or else do RMA after RMA and hope that eventually they get a golden card which is quiet. "Normal" doesn't necessarily mean "majority"; just "considered common and acceptable".

Coil whine doesn't indicate damage and doesn't hurt the card. It just hurts the customer's reflection on their purchasing decision.

DirtySouthWookie
I went through 10 980s and 2 PSUs before I gave up. Good luck.

I went through about 8 gtx 970's and 2 PSUs as well, all cards had annoying coil whine. I'm back to AMD now, can't these Nvidia people get some gosh darn tight coils that don't whine.

Dear enacku,
 
I am very sorry for any confusion as I am showing that we did help with one replacement, but if you are in need of support with your replacement then we are here to assist. Support@evga.com 
 

enacku

DirtySouthWookie
I went through 10 980s and 2 PSUs before I gave up. Good luck.

I went through about 8 gtx 970's and 2 PSUs as well, all cards had annoying coil whine. I'm back to AMD now, can't these Nvidia people get some gosh darn tight coils that don't whine.

I have the same problem.  GTX 980 reference design, high pitched whine that is worse at high framerates (>60FPS).  I have tested 2 cards now and the same issue occurs.  Have a 120Hz monitor thus don't want to limit my FPS to 60.  It sounds like I can RMA the card but my concern is that this is an issue with the whole batch from EVGA and likely to occur again with the new card.  I keep reading posts on a variety of forums suggesting that this might be the case.  I am also stuck between RMA since they can't start the next RMA until UPS finally gets my previous card scanned into their system (even though the picked it up this morning).

My Seasonic X660 Platinum also Coil Whine like a madman.
 
Really annoying especially at night.

EVGATech_ChrisB
Dear zqa20,
 
I can recommend that if the game you are playing is older then you may consider enabling Vsync to see if this helps.  If you should continue to have loud coil whine then please contact us at Support@evga.com or by phone at 1-888-881-3842 option 1 as we are here to assist you.
 

zqa20
gtx 980 acx cooling
 
So I have a 144hz monitor and I need to obviously try to take advantage of that refresh rate as it's what I've paid for. When i get to "high" frame rates i can hear some coil whine and i'm not sure what's the issue as from what I've read these cards are sensitive to how the power is delivered to them. 
 
So here are the components I have that deliver power to the card :)
Asrock z77 extreme 6
EVGA G2 850w
 
Does anybody else use this mobo and have this issue?

 Thanks for the reply
I bought a 144hz monitor and a 780ti (980 step up) for a reason ^^ to take advantage of the high frame rate. In a way i wish i could have my 780ti back lol even though it took 3 attempt's to get a 780ti from EVGA that didn't rattle under certain fan speeds the card i had was perfect. It seems that RMA'ing wouldn't get rid of the coil whine just reduce or more likely make it worse as from looking at yt and the forums a lot dare i say most people have it worse than me right now. 
 
This sort of issue shouldn't happen with a top end expensive card like this, it's simply unacceptable and shouldn't be considered "normal".

ntbaker
I realize that people that are 100% satisfied rarely post that and most of the feedback here is from people with issues... but does anyone know if some of the current GTX 980s are coil-whine-free?

Here's a fun little poll you might like. Basically its a widespread problem with all 900's from all manufactures. Some have whine some don't its total luck of the draw. 
 
Linky