I purchase a gigabyte gtx 970 g1 gaming but im having to return it for refund since I had a lot of issues with noise and some kind of humming noise coming from card.

Im wondering will all gtx 970's have this or is it rare and if so what card is best or least affected?

Does it use a stock NVIDIA cooler or a custom one?

Edit: It looks like the G1 does use a cooler of Gigabyte's own design, so that might be the issue. If you're unsure, you could always go with another manufacturer.

Which GTX 970 is it?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125684

You can even read some of the reviews guess I should done more research.

Cons: The ONLY con I have for this card is that my card has started whining. I don't know if I knocked it against something while I was upgrading my motherboard. but there is a noticeable whine now when I mute the volue on games, and I can hear it some times when I'm browsing the internet.

The G1 is a custom cooler, if there is a problem with the fan's on the unit producing the noise then that is a problem isolated to that card (not even all G1's, those windforce cooler are pretty damn quiet). If the humming noise is what I think it is then you have a case of coil whine, not much you can do about it but it's going to be something down to individual cards. 970's are one of the fastest and coolest (temp wise) GPU's on the market. You could pick up another make of card if you're that concerned but Gigabyte are pretty solid. If you must have absolute silence then the Asus 970 STRIX is the one you want, at idle it's passively cool and those fans don't spin up until significant load is detected,

Im a little worried to get another Gigabyte because the reviews seem to all point to same thing as me where other cards are getting less of that.

@korwin: MSI's 970 does 0rpm at idle too. It's a pretty neat feature.

@bcooper21:

Does the whine sound like this? Start the video at 1:40

If it does then the issue is coil whine which has to do with the inductors on the card, and as the guy in the video explains the only thing you can do is get a different power supply that reacts nicer to the video card's load, other than that there's not much you can do.

very good video that....

Yep, sounds like coil whine. Good luck with an RTM for that - Some places do it, some don't.

My 780 has some but only when the framerates are mad - 1000+ in menus etc. If it annoys me I lock the framerate to 120 in Nvidia Inspector and the whine's gone.

Coil whine is one of those things you just can't predict. It can be specific to a certain GPU/PSU combo, or just be an issue under certain levels of load.

FWIW, I actually picked the very card you're returning because it had the fewest anecdotal reports about coil whine coupled with the best performance and a backplate. Given that the ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte cards all have different power inputs and different components as well (MSI loves to tout their "military grade"ness), if you're having problems with one you'll probably be fine with another. A bunch of people had issues with the MSI 970 and swapped for the Gigabyte with no issues, so I can't imagine going in the other direction wouldn't have a similar effect.

Also, both the ASUS and MSI cards stay passive (fans off) until you reach a certain temp. I was close to picking the MSI before the coil whine reports came in, and skipped over the ASUS because of the lower max clock. YMMV.

Can confirm, my Asus 970 SINGS!!!!!! Generally, I can't hear it through my headphones so whatever.

I have that same card with no real issues. I briefly had coil whine when I ran the Ungine Valley benchmark, but I haven't heard anything out of the ordinary when playing games. I've heard coil whine is a potential issue on all GTX 970s, though.

Try setting a framelimit/putting vsync on to get rid of coil whine.

I bought a 970 from MSI, it is quiet as a mouse, probably because the fans aren't running half the time.

Huh, I expected this to be about that single fan, short Gigabyte GTX 970. I thought it seemed like a stretch and all the reviews of that card are about coil whine, fan noise and heat. Since you are complaining about similar issues with a triple fan card I wonder if there is a larger issue with the construction of Gigabyte's cooling components.

I use an MSI GTX 970 specifically this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127832&cm_re=gtx_970-_-14-127-832-_-Product

It is very very very quiet. I mean it is louder than my other fans sure, but to give you perspective playing say Far Cry 4.... I can't hear the fan. Not even a tiny bit. Either you just got a bad card or the gigabyte cooling solution is just poorly made. In all honesty when it comes to graphics cards and mobo's only two companies exist in my opinion. MSI and Asus. Everyone else belongs to a company called Crap Inc.

I heard that you can't really trust reviews because the samples that Gigabyte sends to reviewers tend to get different revisions quickly, which means inferior memory and other lower quality components. I think EVGA and Asus for nvidia cards are better, more reputable brands.

Coil whine can hit any device with a fan, but from reading reviews, I've noticed Gigabyte GPUs and some Corsair power supplies (the CX series in particular) seem to have more complaints of this than other hardware. Recently, EVGA GTX 970s seem to have more reviews than normal complaining of coil whine - none on the 980s that I've seen. But, I've seen complaints of coil whine across most major brands of GPUs and Power Supplies on the market. It's a dice roll across the board.

If you can get a refund, I would go with the MSI 4G or ASUS Strix 970. They seem to have much fewer instances of coil whine than the Gigabyte cards. I've got a pair of reference 970s in SLI that have no issues, but I'm a weirdo who likes the blower style coolers.

Yeah i have that card. Its coil whine. Its annoying, but most 970s have complaints of coil whine. I recommend going to Nvidia control panel>Manage 3d settings>Global settings>Power management mode set to Maxiumum performance rather than adaptive. Really lowered to coil whine for me.

I have a 970 and I love it, haven't noticed any coil whine, though I'm probably going to notice it now and it will ruin my life.