I returned my second one and am awaiting the forth now, which will have the shipping label for me to return the third *sigh*. Apparently the next one from RMA will be flagged for testing to ensure there is no whine, which sounds promising, but I was told the first one I returned was tested and came up passing on their end anyway, so I have no additional hope from that, but we'll see...

thebski
Does it do it with games that are reasonable for a GTX 970? I've never owned a card that doesn't wine pretty loudly when at absurd FPS. Between 670 FTW's, 680 Classifieds, Titans, 780 Classifieds, 780 Ti SC's, all of them would wine when at extremely high frame rates. All cards do. Put them under a reasonable load where they pull <200 FPS and they don't make any noise.

I didn't have a higher end GeForce 600 or 700 series cards (I currently have a temporary GeForce GTX 650) so maybe that was normal for them, but my GeForce 4 Ti 4200, GeForce 6800 GS, GeForce 8800 GT, and GeForce GTX 560 Ti did not do this (I'm only listing the mid-high end cards for their time, not the others I've also had that never did it). To be more precise, yes, I did hear the latter two did make a very insignificant whine during the Crysis OEM logo movies, so I am aware all cards technically do it, but it was very minor and it seldom happened. This is very major and almost always happening, so it's very different now. As a recent poster said, it is fine sitting idle, but that's about it. Playing nearly any game or benchmark, Windows Experience Index, or even the EVGA homepage's alternating flash (I am serious) causes noise.
 

As per testing it with reasonable games, I play Minecraft with a lot of anti-aliasing and a very far render distance so if you're thinking I'm playing with thousands of needless FPS in Minecraft, I'm not. Actually, if I look towards the sky or ground where I do have more frames, the noise diminishes (if not vanishes!). It's when looking more level to the horizon where more is being rendered and my frame rate drops that it goes crazy. Regardless of how demanding said game is on said modern high end GPU, I play it, so how it behaves under practical conditions is extremely relevant to me, although it does it in Crysis (the original) too.
 
I only have a limited understanding of the issue, but apparently it's not about how many frames the card is rendering, but rather the power being pulled. I think someone posted more about it elsewhere prior in this thread.

Same buzzing noises as mentioned before. Even at 60 and 30fps.
This is my third "attempt" with an GTX 970 SC ATX 2.0. i hope they will fix this issue with the SSC Version because the sound is sooo annoying as a non headphone user...

El-Dubya
Not sure how long you have until step-up but I would just jump to the new SSC right now (or wait for the FTW+) if you're having that many issues. I've had the new SSC for a week now and with mine unless you put your ear literally right next to the card or you get crazy high fps, there's no horrible buzzing/whine coming from this card. You wouldn't happen to be running your ACX fans at >60%? If so, I'm surprised you could hear anything over that hair dryer .  

Thx for the information! That sounds very good. I hope they will release the SSC very soon here in Germany. But i think i can not step up, because the ssc is the same gpu family :/

I have owned 4 980 SC's and 4 980 Classified, I have not heard any coil whine on any of these cards

mistermister

enacku
Everyone has coil whine, you can't escape it, and no one has proven they don't have coil whine. No one has provided a video showing them running unigine benchmark while holding their camera near the card.

 
 

Ok well that is very nice, do you run a separate power supply for your gpus?

I have it. Sometime at low fps too; usually i hear it at 90-100fps but sometimes it come at 60fps too. Thinking to going for rma. During the loading of games (when fps go to 1000-2000fps) it's very high and impossible to listen.
 
970 SC ACX 2.0
 
 
Sorry for my english, i'm from italy.

enacku

mistermister

enacku
Everyone has coil whine, you can't escape it, and no one has proven they don't have coil whine. No one has provided a video showing them running unigine benchmark while holding their camera near the card.

 
 

Ok well that is very nice, do you run a separate power supply for your gpus?

I do not. I have a single EVGA 1300 G2 PSU, however I also had these cards installed with an Antec TPQ-1200 PSU and I didn't have any whine then either.

Got my new SSC today - Coil whine 
Damn, this is so dissapointing!

None here with my new 970 acx 2.0 hope my 2nd one doesn't when I get it.

Yes I have light to moderate "coil whine". Should I return my card? Is the coil whine a sign that my card may fail?

Baroon

El-Dubya
Just curious, when does this occur for you?

I only have 3 games on my PC, so i can only test it with them (and of course Benchmarks)
Final Fantasy 14 A Realm Reborn: Ultra, buzzing at 60fps cap, same noise at 30fps cap
The Crew: Ultra, 60fps cap with V-Sync, 30fps cap with V-Sync, buzzing as well
Sim City: 60fps with V-Sync, 30fps with V-Sync, buzzing
At Sim City and FF14, i can not notice a difference between 30, 60 or even unlimited fps.
 
I also noticed, that Furry E (GPU memory burner) was very quiet at 3072MB, but noisy at 1024 and 2048 - very strange
I display has a resolution of 1440x900 and runs at 60hz.
 
Not confused yet? Now the strange thing:

I made a little "Benchmarkscene" in FF14 for myself - ran from point A to B, very simple.
First run:All Precision X settings on default. Result: noisy and average 47fps.
Second run: underclocked the card to the max, this means: 49% Power Target, 60C Gpu Temp Target, -1000Mhz Gpu Clock Offset and -501Mhz Mem Clock Offset. Result: very low noise buzzing and average 47fps.
 
I repeated this 3 times - always same results. This seems to be a solution, but why i have same results with different clocks is very confusing. But hey, i dont feel like i would run the card under its potential - just disabeling the noise...
Maybe FF14 is just badly programmed - or very good ^^
 
At Sim City, the underclock-method resulted in 30fps, with normal clock i have around 60fps - this sounds way more logical!
 
This is so strange, i think nobody will believe this ^^

I've never played those games before but if you can't run the card normally, especially with vsync/frame caps on, without it making noise then sounds like you got an RMA/return on your hands . You could try a burn-in by running Valley/Heaven overnight or so and see if that helps. 

Update:
I found a fix that works for me very well.
I simply set the Power Target to 49% and the GPU Temp Target to 60C, GPU and Mem Clock stay at Default. I get same perfomance without any coil whine! Only if im next to my sidepanel i can hear it a little bit :-) Finaly a quiet GPU!


But I have one question left: Gpu Temp Target seems logic, the card tries to hold that temp, but if i set the power target to 49%, does this mean that the card only gets 49% of its normal power? I get same fps in Sim City (around 60) regardless of Target set to 100% or less.
Anyway, i'm now so happy to have a quiet card! I hope this 49% power target does not hurt the card - perfomance seems to be the same.

I have INSANE coil whine.  I mean, its rediculous. I sit 8 feet away from tower, WITH headphones on and I can barely hear music over it.  

If the noise was HALF this loud I would return it.  It blows me f-ing mind they can even sell this.  For some of you who are saying that you hear some static noises and you have to listen with your head next to the card... you have no clue what coil whine is.  It sounds like mini jet engine and you can hear it across the room.   
 
I am not even bothering with EVGA RMG.  Fck EVGA... I am sending back to Amazon and leaving a bad review for their company and product.  I will buy an Asus... hell I will go to AMD just to get away from from these scumbags. 

I just tried the forth one I was given and it does it all the same. This wasn't a new one this time either. It came in a smaller box with only the graphics card, and had apparently been tested beforehand (it had a small circular green sticker on it with the number 5). I was somewhat hopeful, but the results were exactly the same. Now to send the third one back and contact support about looking towards a fifth, I guess? This is getting old.
 
I have now completely lost any hope that any further of these GeForce GTX 970s will not have this issue and I am completely stuck with nothing to do but repeat this senseless loop. It feels terrible. I can't fault service, as it's been great, but this doesn't fix the actual issue when every product itself is always the same. I'm already out the time and money, and at this point, I just want to stop the bleeding of any more. I don't even want a GeForce GTX 970 anymore.

I'm more interested in a gtx titan 2.0 or a 980ti right now. I think long exposure to this coil whine is messing my ears up.:(