Capacitor Squealing

Kryptyx · February 28, 2016

Well... I finally got around to testing out my new cards.

So about a month ago I purchased 2 new Asus Strix 980TI OC to replace my previous non-factory OC model (in hopes for better overclockability). Yeah, I know kind of pointless but I managed to sell my previous cards for $620 each so it really only cost me about $80 in total for the swap. The new cards arrived and I was excited to see the ASIC score's were pretty high. The one card is 81.5% and the other is 85.6%. Once I saw the ratings I had to disconnect my system because I moved. I finally got around to setting up my system today and decided to see how these things ran. First thing I did was fire up 3DMark and immediately noticed squealing coming from one of the cards (the 85.6%). I ran several more tests and even overclocked them just to see how far I could push the card. The squealing is obviously louder the further I pushed the card, running it at stock the sound is less noticeable but present.

This was the best bench I could get on stock voltage. I really didn't want to push the voltage with it squealing like this.
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/10985178?

Here is a video of the card squealing during the graphics test 1:
https://goo.gl/photos/H1q6gyeL68ZNXV55A

It may sound a little worse coming through a video recorded by a phone but I think you get the idea.

Any advice? Should I begin my nightmare of contacting ASUS for an RMA? Will it go away? Should I ignore it?