Stefan Mileschin

Taking advantage of the low TDP of GeForce GTX 970 and GTX 980, several NVIDIA add-in card (AIC) partners such as ASUS, MSI, and Palit, innovated their VGA cooling solutions to feature idle fan-off. Such a feature lets the card turn its fans completely off, when the GPU is idling, or is below a temperature threshold, making the card completely silent when not gaming. NVIDIA plans to standardize this with its next-generation GeForce GTX TITAN X graphics card.

Given that its TITAN family of super high-end graphics cards never get to be custom-designed by AICs, NVIDIA has decided to standardize an idle fan-off feature of its own. Unlike AICs, who have used specialized fan-controller chips that take auxiliary temperature input to decide when to turn the fan off, NVIDIA's approach will be more driver-based. Future drivers accompanying the GTX TITAN X will offer a new feature, which when enabled, lets you choose between a non-linear fan curve that keeps the fan off; and one that runs it at low speeds. This should let the driver power the fan of a GTX TITAN X completely off, until it reaches a temperature threshold, and only then begin to ramp up speeds. It could help not just idle (desktop), but also light-gaming scenarios (think League of Legends).

http://www.techpowerup.com/208911/nv...-off-mode.html