Swosso
970ftw, yes :(

Illusion_of_Progress

Spike-Hob
Try the fixes I have suggested . using heaven or valley benchmark overnight will definitely improve it . possibly look to reroute some cabling , I have found this can cure all sorts of noise and interference issues .

I will certainly not run that overnight on my PC in my room with a noise you can hear rooms away (!) for a problem the card has out of the box. I learned my lesson from last time not returning a video card that had borderline issues from the start. It was an EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti that ran warm and crashed (Crysis, namely). I later spent more time playing Minecraft and League of Legends and the sorts, and while it ran hot, it mostly never crashed, so I decided not to be "that customer" who returns things over small stuff. The result? I got burned. Or, my graphics card seemingly did. It died in about three years and I found what I believe were burn marks near some chips. The symptom was abnormal visual rendering for just a split flicker second (not like the usual polygonal error rendering of a bad GPU though) which lead to crashing during 3D applications, yet the temperatures were fine (59C).
 
Come to think of it, when I replaced my old PSU with an EVGA SuperNova G2 750 very recently, it, too, has some whine, but it's only noticeable with the PC off (no fan or drive noise) and when within about a foot or two of the PSU, so it's tolerable.
 
This graphics cards, however, is nowhere near tolerable. It's not just during the odd loading screen or with thousands of frames that this occurs either. It happens in very practical situations. It's also not a minor noise, but a pretty loud one that also varies as you play (it's like listening to the graphics card make music while playing Minecraft; it's pretty ridiculous...). It happens in Minecraft even, yes! It happens in League of Legends (worse with the frame rate uncapped, though it's not how I play but still). It happens on the Windows Experience Index. It occurs in an MMO I play. It occurs in The Sims 3. I'm sure it'd occur in some other games I have, and maybe not in some others. Yes, all graphics cards have some degree of it, but not anywhere close to the way the GeForce GTX 970 seems plagued by it. I never actually heard it any of my previous GPUs. Did the graphics card industry go the way the PSU industry did the past few generations  and decide coil whine is acceptable or something!? I'm starting to think these actual cards by the AIBs were very poorly made, even if the GeForce GTX 970 chip itself is otherwise fantastic. I just want to return it, get my money back, and avoid it now, but I fear it may be too late. I really don't even want to return it (I want it to work), but I less want to perpetually return a $400 (and cost and time increasing) paper-weight, and I'm starting to fear that's what will happen.
 
I appreciate the advice, and don't feel like I'm taking frustration out on you, but if there's an issue out of the box, back it should go. They need to manufacture these to be right from the onset in my opinion. I know it doesn't "harm" the GPU but I absolutely cannot use it like this. I don't want to have to worry about "if it comes back" or other issues down the line. If I don't pull it from the box and have it quiet as every other GPU I've ever owned, then I will not do anything further with it.

howdy2u2

Pgcmoore
I use to get a serious whine from one of these.....
 

hmmm Showing your age.....well I had one too LOL

rshwayder
I've had my hands on four 970s.

I don't consider super high fps whine to be coil whine (like in menus at 2000 fps). I haven't had a card in years that didn't whine in that situation.

A 970 SC that had minimal to no whine, a 65 ASIC 970 FTW with minimal whine, a 67.9 ASIC FTW with a small amount of coil whine, and a 76.8 ASIC 970 FTW with a slightly buzzy coil whine.

Highest ASIC has the most audible whine. It's a slightly annoying coil buzz if I'm not using audio while gaming, but can't hear it with sound on so I kept it. Its core overclocks well. Memory doesn't hit 2000 like the 67.9 ASIC card, but that card sometimes became unstable at stock (but curiously was super stable when I modded the BIOS to give it more voltage and power).

Spike-Hob
WOW ! no problems , I am very thick skinned . You really need to let EVGA know how you feel . You are quite right of course , there should not be such a silicon lottery . There seems to be far too much variance in what we the consumer gets . To be fair to EVGA , they seem to respond quickly to issues , I have not had any problems when dealing with them . I hope they get you sorted .
 I do have to say though that I tried a Gainward Phantom 970 before my FTW , and the whine on that was worse than the card I have now ( since my burn in , no whine at all ) .