It's been updated, sorry about that.

Yep same thing as mine exactly, I had also noticed pushing on the card in certain spots did change the intensity of the noise.  I still don't understand how they messed it up this bad, saying all the 2xx series/480/470 don't seem to have have this issue and they have turbine type fans as well.

Sorry that I am late to the party but I have been very pleased with the lack of fan noise on my gtx460 1gb SC.  When I am folding it gets to about 77 degrees C and the fan is at about 58%.  I hardly even hear it.  I did max out the fan manually in Precision and it starts to sound like a leaf blower at 80%, but sure does cool down the card in a hurry.  When gaming I never get above the temp / fan speed of folding.  After reading the reviews of the EVGA 1gb I was worried about the noise of the non reference cooler too but am happy it isn't an issue.

I fixed a significant amount of the annoying whirring noise by placing a rubber band at the fan end of the gpu.

As a poster mentioned above, there are no restraint on the back end of the shroud/fan design, the screw holes are empty ?A?!!!

A local retailer finally got some of the EVGA GTX 460's in stock, so I picked up the vanilla 1GB EE version on the weekend.  Mine runs quiet at 40% idle speed, however, if you juice up the fan to 60% or more using Precision, you can really hear it.
 
As a few others have posted, I kept my PC running and took the side panel off my case and placed my finger in different locations around the shroud when it was at 60% and 70% fan speed.  The noise practically disappeared in a couple of those spots, and it seems like the noise is being generated by vibration or something against the shroud.  With the card removed from the computer, you can give the blower fan a little flick with the finger and you can see some wobble in the fan as it spins, so it's definately not a great quality blower on this one.
 
Right now, I'm running Folding@Home, GPU is at 100% load, and with the fan set to auto it is only at 46% fanspeed, with GPU temp at 67 degrees C.  At 46% the fan is not noisy at all, and this is with the side panel of my case removed.  My ambient room temp is 23 degrees C.
 
If you're going to run stock clocks, (or even the 720/1440 with FPB) with the fan on auto, then you're probably not going to notice the noise.  It's only those wanting to overclock past 720 and ramp up the fan speed manually to 70% (or to 100% with FPB), that are going to be disappointed in the noise.
 
I have 3 computers in my house (me, my son, and one for my wife/daugther) and all have EVGA mobo's and video cards.  Do I like the idea of External Exhaust, yes.  Did I want an EVGA card, yes.  Did I want the noise, no, but I had to check it out for myself.  Should I have waited for the 1GB reference model?  Probably (presuming that it is indeed coming).
 
I haven't applied the FPB yet, as I still have 3 days to decide if I want to keep this card or return it in exchange for a 1GB model with a quieter (but internally exhausting) fan system, like the Gigabyte.  For now, I've jury-rigged a piece of cardboard and wedged it between the shroud and the floor of my case, and that helps a lot to quiet it down at 70% fan speed.
 
I hope EVGA takes some time to look at this issue, cuz if you peek at Newegg.ca's website, there's a lot more happy customers posting in the comments section of the Gigabyte 1GB model than any of the EVGA EE cards.
 
Just my 2 cents.
 

I have the same problem. I switched from a BFG GTX 275 to the EVGA GTX 460 1gb SC EE and the fan is insanely loud. The fan noise on my GTX 275 at 40% was almost inaudible and the GTX 460 at the same fan speed is equivalent to the fan speed of my GTX 275 at 80%. A buddy of mine bought the identical EVGA GTX 460 as mine and it's much quieter. I think EVGA has a quality control issue going on here with this card. I just RMA my card and trying to switch over to the non external exhaust version.

Glad i found this thread.. mines not loud on idle BUT it gets loud when i boot the pc cold start. I think that's normal for us because they need to speed up the fan to cool the video card for later use.. normal use. WOW that was LOUD in that video and that is seriously something wrong with it. Hope the RMA process works out well for ya! Is it normal to have something sound like a helicopter boot up when you cold start boot your pc? I need to do a througho test to see which is making that noise. I think it's one of my fans lol..not the card. It's hard for me to figure it out because i'm hearing impaired lol.