I was speaking to TDP. The actual temperature the card runs at is highly dependent upon room temperature, how good the cooling solution is on the card, how well

I was speaking to TDP. The actual temperature the card runs at is highly dependent upon room temperature, how good the cooling solution is on the card, how well-ventilated the case is, and of course the workload. Just because windows says the GPU is "100"% doesn't mean it's using maximum power; I've had games that make the fans go crazy at "100%" and games that at "100%" the fans never leave their default. Every vendor makes multiple tiers of a particular GPU and you generally get what you pay for, though with diminishing returns for someone who isn't looking to overclock to the edge and get a few extra FPS. Good vendors starting a tier or two above their budget tier tend to produce cards with thermal solutions that are fairly quiet at stock speeds/voltages when gaming in a properly ventilated case in a comfortably cool room. On 1xxx series cards for example, MSI's Gaming X line come with an absolutely massive heatsink. I had an MSI 1060 Gaming X that was overclocked and fully loaded the fans weren't noticeable, much less loud, and I had a terribly ventilated case. My current card is a 1070 ti, from a reputable manufacturer and it's a mid-tier card. I have a pretty aggressive fan curve on it because I want longevity (capacitor lifetime drops appreciably with temperature.) Even then, I almost never notice the fans, but I have upgraded to one of the most well-ventilated $100-ish cases. Stay well clear of single fan GPUs if you intend to do any gaming or compute work beyond "very occasionally." The fan noise will drive you nuts and the card will quickly thermally throttle. If you care about your GPU lasting, lower the fan shutoff point to be more like 35-40c instead of the usual 60c, or just set them to run at the minimum speed all the time. Fans are easy to replace; caps aren't...and a quality card, the fans should be nearly silent at minimum speed.