Noise Output and Cooling Performance
With that massive fan and extra-large heatsink I expected the cooling performance to be a notch above stock, but I wasn’t sure how it all would affect the noise output of the Classified. As it turns out, because it does such a good job cooling it actually keeps the card quieter. When the fan is ramped up to 100% the noise is barely bearable, but anything less than 30% isn’t even audible on our open air test bench. With a max RPM of 5000 the GTX 580 Classified could easily suck a bird in if given the chance. Even when overclocking, there were only a few times where the card ramped up to an audible level.
The only exception to this was furmark testing (1080p benchmark) where we did see temperatures and noise rise up to 69c with the fan reaching nearly 80%. If you expect to pick up this card and run it at 100% load you can expect it to repay you with noise levels that will be unbearable. In "normal" use and in game the cooler for the GTX580 performed flawlessly.
For those of you wondering, here are idle temperatures with the cooler on auto at 40% and also 100%