Quiet 4GB NVIDIA Cards

Samut

Looking to move up from my 750 TI card with 2 GB, I'm seeing some of the newer 960 series cards with 4 GB running about $220. That's about what my budget and the power supply on my PC can handle.

My concern is noise; the office where my PC is located is between my bedroom and my son's bedroom. I usually let renders run overnight, but that won't be an option if the PC is making a ton of noise. The reviews for these various cards just describe their performance for gaming as opposed to rendering, so they aren't much help in this regard.

Does anyone have one of these cards, and if so, how loud are they?

Thanks in advance.

fastbike1

Shouldn't be louder than your 750.

Edit: My fan never goes above 55% to keep GPU temperature at 80C. Noise level is not noticeable.

nicstt

Asus strix cards are great; fans only spin up when they are working at full load, and reasonalbe even then; I have some water cooling and all SSDs as I like quiet.

Saw a 980ti with a closed-loop water cooler that looked good, can remember where though; although way out of your budget, but shows that some are produced.

ralphor2003

I agree the Strix ASUS cards are quieter even using just the air cooled mode, just remember when you render it will get hotter and the fan will spin up but not at full speed if configured using the software. I am running two ASUS Strix 970 (Non-SLI)  when idle silent, during rendering minimal noise. But there is some hot air pumping out of there, environment helps too a well ventilated case in and out helps. I think the GTX 970 is a better buy at ~330.00 becuase it has ~1600 cuda cores in comparison to the GTX 960 with ~1000. It may be worth saving for. A used GTX 690 (which I like) maybe an alternative it has ~3000 CUDA cores but they are getting harder to find. For IRAY I think raw CUDA core numbers matter the most since there are no native graphics drivers to optimize performance as far as I know. I have used native drivers for 3DMAX and MAYA for Quadro's and Tesla's and they seem to help I use these at work for modeling. Lastly what pixel size do you render with? Render Settings and lighting play a factor in render times in addition to GRAM. I experimented alot to find this balance my last comment is just my 2 cents, since I don't know what you have tried. Happy New Year and Rendering!