So I've got it plugged in and installed. It came in the most bare-bones package you've ever seen: all that was inside was the card in this box, a little shrink-wrapped DVI-to-VGA connector, a folded generic "quick-start" guide and a driver disk. You can see the "luxury" EVGA packaging in the background The driver CD ook: : That's kind of disappointing in some ways for something so expensive. But I also appreciate it. It's a reference card, I don't need posters and fancy packaging, or even a driver CD - Who isn't going to download news ones? And I don't like all the "utilities" they're always including for the most part. If only it was reflected in price. No benches or anything as I only really had time to play some PS2 yesterday...and probably won't get in much more until the weekend. But it bumped up my performance rather significantly in PS2. At 2560x1440 I was mostly GPU limited (a PS2 rarity!) to about 40fps with no action. Now it's hitting the 100fps limit. In action I was down to 20-30, now it's more like 30-60. At higher detail. Great success. I think it's also quieter than the 570...but it's hard to say when they were both mostly below audible in my case.
I don't think I have ever heard a video card's fans to be honest, case fans are usually far louder once they are spinning at max RPM. How are the temps/what is the cooling setup on the card?
In the past they have been quite loud. My old GTX275 would spool up in a game and then not spool back down when it was done and it sounded like a little vacuum cleaner. The 570, when dusty, could get audible. When gaming, my h220's pump and fans overshadow the rest, but at idle you could hear the graphics. It's more about designing a good cooler than the heat output, though. Considering the 275 and 570 have similar TDPs and the 780 is ~30W higher? I haven't looked at temps. It's the reference-design blower cooler that was on the Titan as well has some kid of vapor chamber thingy. One of the open-air varieties would give better temps, but I'm not planning on any extra overclock and would rather keep case temps lower as my CPU radiator at the top of the case is in an exhaust configuration for dust-control.
You must not use EVGA precision. Hopefully PNY has been better than they used to be. I once had a PNY card fry my mobo/psu/memory and catch fire, this was in 2006 though so hopefully they are better.