Like the others have already mentioned, this type of card just blows the hot air from the graphics card around your computer case. A reference designed 7970 with a blower fan is quite loud, but gets the job done in displacing the heat produced by the card. Another consideration (which I currently use) is to get a full card waterblock (universal blocks do not cool 7970 mosfets, so the board will crash in minutes at high clocks under load).