A long discussed topic, but it hasn't been brought up in awhile. I've had the GTX 970 SSC EVGA since its release, and I still have no solution to the coil whine, an extremely audible ticking. EVGA has been extremely supportive in providing a solution by RMAing. I have RMA'd a few times already, and the first time, it was a little better but extremely audible. The second time with special case testing too, it was even worse.
 
I have done burn in tests on each card for 72 hours straight with MSI Kombuster, Unigine Heaven's, and Folding @ Home, all of where it's very loud. I've also tried menus in games where it's very audible. V-sync works to an extent, but it is still very audible. Following these burn in tests, it was not remedied.
 
I RMA'd my Corsair AX760 to see if that fixed my problem. No go.
 
My original motherboard was a GA-970A-UD3 and I recently upgraded to an Asrock 990fx-Killer gaming motherboard just to fix this issue because it just wouldn't go away. No change either.
 
The coil whine still persists now, and with my AC on during the hotter months, I couldn't hear it. The AC is off now and this whine is loud as ever, and I thought it would get better over time. I still burn it in for a few days when I feel like it, but there has not been a change.
 
Sorry for the long ranting story, but are there any solutions that have worked for you guys? Any specific burn in test methods? Thanks for reading. 
 
TL;DR Try harding at reducing coil whine, need a better solution!
 
Thanks again.

EVGATech_JamesL
In some cases certain power supplies can cause or enhance a video card's coil whine. I may suggest testing with a different power supply to see if the issue occurs. 

I dealt with a machine that had a evga 760 acx in it a few months back for a friend and it had a pretty low end and scary built thermaltake tr2 (no idea who the oem was) and it was the cause. Replaced with a super flower made supply (evga b2) since it was on sale and over kill to keep the fan noise down, and the coil noise on the video card was pretty much gone. Now onto the 970 SSC, I have the normal non bestbuy versions of these cards in other systems in the home and with rm750 corsair supplies (Chicony made) and they have no coil noise at all after about a month of use. I did have a bestbuy version that had a slight buzz to it but had it replaced for sli reasons, but you could only hear it when the gpu fans were under 15% and you had a massive load on the card. The fan noise at about 25% completely covered it up. It was alike a static noise from the inductors and not the high pitch squeal I heard on the 760 with a terrible supply. 

couldbenext
Thanks guys. Reminded me of a few things:
 
I did try overclocking, underclocking, voltage changing, no change. But not sure if I tried that specific clock, so will try when I get home. Whenever it didn't work, I just set it back to default. For whatever reason, whenever I over clocked, it led to instability when I tried to get to clocks as high as I see people do on the internet.
 
All cards I tried had the same amount and same sounding coil whine in a different PC: Intel core i3 3000 series Dell Optiplex. It uses a Corsair CX500. This PC is using an EVGA 650 Ti Boost which has coil whine too, but not as audible so hopefully if I find a good fix for the 970, it can work for the 650 ti boost haha. 

EVGA Tech James is referring to you trying a different brand/make of power supply because weve found out through the years that some brands, models or lines of PSU's are more liable to cause coil whine.

The cx model of corsair supplies are not the best in terms of noise suppression but as an overall power supply they are safe to use. The noise is mot likely a result of the supply if it is a cx series given from how sparse noise suppression is on the secondary side.