MSI GTX 1060 6GB Gaming X Review

Our acoustic measurements are less precise on this mid-range test system, the noise floor of the totally quiet testing room is 35 dBA as measured with a Benetech GM1351 Digital Sound Level Meter.

We take our measurements with the decibel meter protruding off the front-top section of the chassis, overhanging by exactly 1 inch. The underlying noise level of the system, generated by the 800 RPM Noctua case fans and H100i with fixed 700RPM fans is 39 dBA, thus anything above this level can be attributed to the graphics card since the PSU is passive for most of it's power capability.

Noise levels were measured after 10 minutes of load under three scenarios: Furmark GPU stress test, Unigine Valley looping at the Extreme HD preset and desktop idle.

Noise levels are absolutely class-leading for the MSI card with the fans generating no additional noise over the other system components. Under the most stressful 3D Load, Furmark, the fans on the MSI card barely broke 900 RPM and under more realistic gaming scenarios they were between 700 and 800 RPM.

MSI's GTX 1060 is quieter than its rival – the ASUS STRIX model which operated at 1700 RPM under Furmark load but this higher RPM is on smaller 85mm fans so the noise output is still very low.

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