Hello,
I started hearing some coil whine coming from my GTX 970 when it was under stress about a year or so ago. It didn't really bother me as it's not very loud and if I have a headset on I can't hear it at all. About a month ago I got a new headset that uses the analog ports instead of the USB port I had been using for the last few years and immediately noticed the better sound and especially mic quality. I didn't figure it out until recently but I can actually hear the coil whine through my headset - I noticed when I was tabbing in an out of a game. The sound is probably louder coming from the headset than the actual sound the GPU makes. Also I like to record my games to review and rewatch later and the recordings also pick up the sound so well that it's unwatchable with sound on.
Couple of notes:
My old headset was a HyperX Cloud II. It came with a virtual USB sound card that you plugged the headset into, and then into a USB port. Worked well but the quality of the sound/mic isn't great compared to this one. I'm currently using a HyperX Cloud Alpha. It turns out I can plug it into the sound card that came with the old headset but it doesn't plug in well and the quality just reverts to the old poor sound/mic. Not only that but my mic doesn't even work when plugged into the card anymore even with the old headset.
I thought it was the headset at first and returned it for a new one the week I got it but both headsets do the same thing. I've tried both the front and back ports and the same thing happens. I also read in a thread somewhere that perhaps my cable for the front ports is too close to my GPU so I checked and my cables are wired okay and go no where near the GPU. Not really sure what to do.
Thanks,
Ivan