A gross exaggeration on the Avalon B1 unit noise.

You can very easily hold a quiet conversation next to one without issue as long as the temperature is below 85F.

The BFL units though (as many of you will testify) is a different beast. It runs pretty damn hot with it's case on. That is why almost everyone removes the housing and changes the fan as if it were "an unnecessary accessory".

While I can run my Avalon B1 (70~85GH/s) at below 50C with fan at 2k RPM. It doesn't really get hot or ramp up the Fans until the temp rises above 95F.

A BFL unit is a hit or miss (more often a miss IMO). Some are cool and work fine with the case on at 35C. Others (better than 50% IMO) are overheating and throttling on a constant basis. Necessitating the removal of the cover to get it under 80C.

The latest fun trend is for the chips (and their apparent cores) is to fail and then necessitating an RMA request. A costly trip back to BFL HQ for a good chuck in the trash bin. Assuming the custom BFL power supply doesn't spark and arc before killing the units attached to it.