Modern GPUs s'pose to whine like a mofo?

- cards with digital VRMs shouldn't whine, according to that article
- cards with digital VRMs do whine, according to people who own them (yeah, my HD4870 included)

But that's fine.

The comment on that page by Jamynn is quite amusing though, and Valich's comments on the comment.

 

Not quite. Potting pickups alone is not enough. If you have classic humbuckers with a metal casing, you not only need to pot the coils inside, but also pot the entire assembly, to keep the whole from resonating.
On top of that, you also need to dampen the whole assembly with foam or such, when it is suspended in the guitar, because even THAT can cause feedback whistles.

The current may be much higher on a videocard... but on a guitar you're actually amplifying the signal coming from it, so that gives it a whole lot more sensitivity. In the end it's the same problem: resonance.

 

I think there is a bigger difference between different brands of cards using the same basic design, than there is between other factors.
If you have bad components, it WILL whine, regardless of what brand of GPU you use, or what kind of voltage regulation you use (isn't the digital regulation done through pulse modulation? Isn't that exactly why eg fans also whine, when the signal isn't filtered down properly? I don't think that would actually be an advantage in this case).
I've had various cards over the years (both ATi and nVidia), sometimes the exact same type, just from different manufacturers... one would whine, the other would be pretty silent. The whining also tends to get worse over time.
I guess you just have to 'get lucky' and get one with silent components. I really don't think there's much of a method to this madness. An AMD GPU doesn't guarantee a silent card... Nor would having a silent card of a certain manufacturer be a guarantee that your next card by that same manufacturer will also be silent, or vice versa.

 

Well my 8800GTX isn't all that annoying. You have to be close to it to hear the whine.

 

No i havent had a whine for a long long time, and it was on a old CRT, and was in only one game Q2, and only then with the PS2mouse curser at certain spots on my screen. have 4870x2s now have had 9800x2, 8800gtx and all the 1850 to 2900 card no whine , always use PCPC PSUs? Only budget MB was a jetway and it is still running (939), I7 not a issue i would be really bummed if it was there(whining) and was louder than my GFX! I use a CRT and a LCD...I also use a line conditioner? No sounds in my 5.1s...

 

The whining from my 4890 isn't that loud. I only noticed it when I installed an aftermarket cooler and poked my head inside the case. Normally I don't hear it at all, so once I found out that it's harmless it hasn't bother me.

 

I wonder if there's a piezoelectric effect going on here? I know common ceramic disk capacitors can cause audio emissions in certain instances.

 

Take no notice to them only noobs would come up with a quote like this :

 

Hah! Lol, they must spend too much of their time looking at all their 'pretty' LEDs & cold cathode lights or something

 

Just to chime in, my 4870 whines too under high load. It makes a quiet hissing noise when running F@H. Seems like it's gotten louder this past year since I've owned it.