Nvidia-Radeon: The ultimate vs after market cooler Debate

[Thor.]

I figured this a great time to ask everyone which is the best aftermarket coolers on the market today, with a fanboy war and poll, hrrm i mean debate.

 

It doesn't matter what if its Nvidia or AMD, This will be the best for both manufacturers...

 

If i missed any i will add it to the poll.

 

Sigh you can't single out the second poll as a continued question, you have click on both. Bug or limitations of the poll system.???

I guess there might be a tie at the end of it all.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Thor.

[FiftyTifty]

Doesn't matter.

 

You can have the best aftermarket cooler in the world (such as one of those Gelid things), but if your air cooling is abysmal, it'll get hot in no time.

 

Conversely, if you've got a damnable VTX cooler, good airflow will make it a moot point.

Edited March 13, 2014 by FiftyTifty

[Thor.]

Not true at all, ask one who owns a gigabyte after market cooler, and trust me it makes all the difference from stock. 72c on load is impressive, same deal with my last 7950 cards. Same temp on load as before.

 

I can't add any more to the poll or it might brake it :tongue:

Edited March 13, 2014 by Thor.

[Rennn]

You left out Galaxy. :3 Most coolers are overkill anyway. The EVGA, MSI, Gigabyte, ASUS, Sapphire and XFX options will all remove far more heat than can even be generated by a recent card. If you were stacking multiple cards in crossfire or SLI it would be a more worthwhile debate, but it's hard to even make a modern single card overheat.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Rennn

[Thor.]

I can't add anymore, unless you can find 8 more i can't add anymore do to the limitations of the poll system

[FMod]

The best cooler is not one that removes the most heat - they all remove enough at 100% speed - but one that removes enough heat the quietest.

 

I don't vote in polls like this, this isn't a matter of opinion, it's a matter resolved with objective measurements. Everything depends on the exact card and exact model anyway, for one chip it's one make, for another a different one.

[Thor.]

Then what is the best cooler, the triple fan models seem to use less force to push the air out the other end, while smaller aftermarket coolers you need more power to pull that airflow in to get that adequate airflow.

The only aftermarket coolers with the 3 fan models i know of is the gigabyte, saphire and pny. Each one have 3 fans to push more air in with less force. More fans to cover the gpu is a good idea in my opinion because the way it displaces heat.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Thor.

[Rennn]

Then what is the best cooler, the triple fan models seem to use less force to push the air out the other end, while smaller aftermarket coolers you need more power to pull that airflow in to get that adequate airflow.

The only aftermarket coolers with the 3 fan models i know of is the gigabyte, saphire and pny. Each one have 3 fans to push more air in with less force. More fans to cover the gpu is a good idea in my opinion because the way it displaces heat.

 

It's true that more fans = less work per fan = quieter fans. However, the quality of each fan matters just as much, if not more.

[FMod]

Fan diameter is considerably more important, assuming currently conventional arrangement. Multi-fan design wastes a large fraction of the pressure produced, because fans are reduced to working against each other. They aren't quite working together, airflow within the card is perpendicular to the fan axis, so they try to force air into one another. The more fans, the more waste, and it's significant.

 

Thermal design today is an emerging science, so I wouldn't dare make definitive claims regarding it. Anyway, if I were to design the "ultimate GPU cooling", what I would try is a full-length (31cm), 2/3 slot card, using a single 140mm high-profile, high-pressure fan, angled at ~15 degrees, located at the close end of the card. Everything behind the fan housing would be 2-slot in height, allowing PCI-E SSD or sound cards to be mounted in the third slot. The radiator would be ~140mm in total width, extending in an L-shape well beyond and to the side of the card, with moderate density perforated fins, for slow turbulent flow to cool all the components. It would then shrink back to a choke point ~25mm away from the mounting brackets, with higher fin density toward the exit as well, opening straight to the outside to provide laminar flow at exhaust point.

 

To the degree that I understand the theory, and taking cues from water cooling experience, that would be the quietest possible arrangement for 2 or 3 air-cooled high wattage cards (assuming a 7-slot motherboard with slots 1, 4 and 7 wired for GPU, and a 9 or 10 slot case). Such a card would run relatively hot, but consistent, cooling improving at high temperature, rather than degrading due to hot air reentering the case.

 

Anyway, that's theory. Practice is that currently the quietest cooler available on stock cards uses two 120mm fans. Three 120mm fans aren't possible due to the 31cm hard limit, so 3-fan cards have smaller diameter, higher rpm fans. Two 140mm fans are theoretically possible.

[Rennn]

Oh, hmm. I based my statement on my experience with case fans and I apparently incorrectly assumed the same would be true for video card coolers.

I know at least with case fans, I've typically had better cooling and less noise using several fans with low rpms, instead of just a couple fans working at high rpms.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Rennn