it has never been a myth, and it's still an issue :p

it all depends on how loud your surroundings are and how much your case lets out and of course on the particular card and/or PSU.

Yeah.. still happens but usually only at very high framerates from what I have seen.... such as running an older version of 3dMark on a new card where the framerates go absurdly high.

I currently have an EVGA RTX2080 (RMA replacement for 1080Ti I bought for cheap that was dead but still under warranty). The max refresh rate on my Freesync monitors is 75Hz and I never hear coil whine unless v-sync is off and framerates are extremely high.

Same was true for my previous GTX1080 and before that R9-390.

PSU in my Mac G4 suffers from this.
Half the problem is its an annoying sound. Hard drives or fans spinning don't bother me but the buzz like sound does.

As soon as you turn the computer on the sound is drowned out tough and If im not using it switch off the power at the wall. Problem fixed 😀

My graphics card (GTX960) has audible coil whine when its rendering high FPS, mostly in menus where framerate is uncapped, 500+fps. It's not bothersome once system fans spin up and drown it out.

Pretty real. I have a GeForce FX 5900 Ultra that is very annoying to use because of this issue.

My GTX 8800 has a really high pitched coil whine with high frame rates.

High framerate coilwhines are common (500+), but I also get coil whine when i've got a command prompt going by super fast (log output reasons)

I thought it was funny when people having this problem used to say "I can hear electricity. No really, I can."

Fact, I'd say. I had a motherboard with an AMD E-350 APU and it featured a high-pitched whine. It was annyoing, because the PC was fanless otherwise.

Edit: I could be wrong, but according to my memory, I kind of fixed it by disabling one of the power-saving features in CMOS setup.

So if you want to run high frame rates and no coil whine the solution is to turn v-sync on? What's the trade off with that?

Vsync's classic tradeoff is input lag

back when I had my first LCD I always enabled vsync without even noticing the lag because I hated tearing ^^

also coil whine can still exist at lower fps too, I remember my HD5870 emitting strange noises... but only really heard it near the card, got drowned out by the loud fan anyways x3

buckeye wrote on 2020-07-24, 15:22:

I've been slowly putting together some parts for my first modern system and now looking over the gpu's available.
Noticed that a lot of the reviews for the RTX Geforces and the new Radeons the subject of coil whine keeps coming up.
I'm hearing impaired so maybe it's all a moot point but has anyone dealt with this issue or is it an over reaction?

Oh it's not a myth. Oh its so not a myth..

leileilol wrote on 2020-07-28, 23:59:

Vsync's classic tradeoff is input lag

Except if you have AMD graphics cards because they can eliminate around 80% of the latency with their Enhanced Sync driver technology.

#redteam

Not only Graphic cards and PSU, but also Motherboard are potentially impacted 🙁
My MSI 848P Neo-V ( Socket 370 ) has a strong coil whine noise almost all the time. Hopefully I won't hear it anymore when I'll put it in a case.

I have a Samsung SSD laying around somewhere which makes funny scratchy noises - sounds a bit like HDD head seek.

Coil whine isn't a myth, I have a card that does it under certain (uncommon) conditions. Buy from somewhere with a good return policy.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-07-29, 06:55:

Except if you have AMD graphics cards because they can eliminate around 80% of the latency with their Enhanced Sync driver technology.

That's basically triple buffering, Nvidia has the same thing (it's called fast sync).

So if you want to run high frame rates and no coil whine the solution is to turn v-sync on?

You can simply cap your frame rate without using Vsync.

shamino wrote on 2020-07-24, 23:49:

I thought it was funny when people having this problem used to say "I can hear electricity. No really, I can."

Well, technically it isn't entirely wrong...

Also, it depends on your hearing, and whether you are oversensitive to sound or not (people with autism tend to suffer from the last one a lot). I can hear the whining of fluorescent tubes (healthy ones, not only ones that are close to failing) and it can be very bothersome.

If I had a crad whining, I'd swap ASAP.

No, seriously. Over the years, mi brain has been impressed with the idea that a PSU whining was either overloaded or soon to fail. Hearing a whine make me nervous.