Spur gears transmit power through shafts that are parallel. The teeth of the spur gears are parallel to the shaft axis. This causes the gears to produce radial reaction loads on the shaft, but not axial loads. Spur gears tend to be noisier than helical gears because they operate with a single line of contact between teeth.  While the teeth are rolling through mesh, they roll off of contact with one tooth and accelerate to contact with the next tooth.  This is different than helical gears, which have more than one tooth in contact and transmit torque more smoothly.