my husband recently moved and he left me a new computer. i love highend hardware as much as the next, but there are alot of fans which i can deal with, but the two graphics cards in this thing are rediculous. i have two evga gtx 480 superclock graphics cards with the fan speed at 100% and its loud to say the least. i do game a bit and have tested to see if i can turn them down a notch, but temps are onpar at rated fan speed as is and water cooling/ liquid cooling is not in the budget. how can i reduce the loud noise of the fans and mainly the graphics cards?
 
thank you for helping 

71stpsde

You can use MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision and reduce the fan speeds. The 480's are very loud at 100%.

 
thank you for your reply, but i tried that using afterburner and well, when i was playing some game maxed out i saw tempatures in the 80's in entense areas of the game at 100%. i fairly convinced i can not go really lower. im thinking like some sort of a dampening material or something. to be honest i realy am unsure what to do hear.

Only the problem with the 480's is they run hot and expecially running them in SLI. I got rid of mine for that reason. I love my 570's. They run so much cooler. You might try and dampening it or see if you sell them and get the new 500's. There's a lot of folks on here with 480's and have been dealing with them running them hot. Maybe they can give you some idea's.

maybe watercool them? :P

If you want to lower your GPU-temps in a cheap and easy way, then use my guide..  Dont forget to use the backplate or some kind of insulation!

Doing something like this (see my guide) is much cheaper! It works very well! (see here for numbers)
 

The Accelero Extreme coolers will take up 3 slots.  So you wouldn't have room for both the 480s.  I say sell them and get a 500 series card.

You can put your rig in your sig. And let us know what kind of a case you have. Do take some pics also.
GTX 480´s runs hot, but with good airflow in case you can get it better.
 
And you said, you game a bit. What is bit? And what games? I mean, do you really need SLi system for your purpose.

Mangix

a cheap and easy way to get lower temps and thus lower fan noise is to change the TIM on the cards. IC Diamond works great for that.

+1 for this. Seeing TIM on the 480´s is simply horrible.
Then focusing the airflow inside the case. Good fans over there.
 
What kind of temps you get? 70% 80% 100% fanspeeds?

no not yet, unfortunatly. my case is a custom wooden case my husband built for now, but even in his old haf 932 temps where the same. i think i just need to figure out a better front panel layout for the fans. when he built this custom wooden cube case, he made it so the panels can be removed and changed in needed for configurations. so far as gamming a bit, i really should say alot i guess. once my son is asleep i play for about 4 hours everynight. im into games like metro 2033, crysis and bioshock 1 and 2. i know bioshock dont take much to run, but those other 2 are wonderful on this pc now, just noise is alot to deal with.

tink im going to redo the placement of some case fans and turn them down a bit, then sound proof the wooden case. because it is wooden it echos a small bit, but once there is some sound dampening in it i think it wil make all the difference. also because its a wood case, it is custom and 3 120mm fans are 2" away right infront of the whole mb/gpu area, and the rest of the components are in the other chamber on opposite side. i will post some picks up soon for a better base for you to help me from, but need to as its maker if it ok i use his pic. can anyone suggest a good way of dampening sound? maybe a alternative to the normal aterial sold at local pc shops. " i was thinking open cell 1/4 foam, then a layer of thin speakbox carpet inside for a clean look. what do you think? keep in mind the case is pretty much hollow at this point so sound bounces everywhere. 

wow is that stuff pricey. there has got to be an alternative. im a single mom with a child and money cant be thrown around. i just like to game to escape from reality every night. the noise really bother me though.

Just take the side of the case of and set the GTX480 fans to auto in EVGA precision, play a few games for a while and see if it crashes, they are designed to withstand the high temperatures. 
 
If you want to make sure, do a GPU stress test such as OCCT, if it doesnt crash you are good. If they get too hot they should downclock.

Cheapest solution: Use headphones for sound when you game and that will take care of the noise problem.

headphones is a good idea in a worse case situation i guess. hmm need to talk my husband into water cooling. what would i need to cool 2 gtx 480 superclock graghics cards from evga properly. what blocks,rad/rads ect. thank you guys.