Non reference video cards with replacement fans that are easy to source?

[cbn]

I know the reference cards have easy to source fans, but what about third party cards?

I am specifically thinking of R9 290 and R9 290X because so many of them don't use the reference design (apparently the AMD heatsink and its part# FD7525U12D fan are known to be loud).

 

[master_shake_]

i had a customer that broke a bunch of the fins ofh his sapphire 290x and i found some on ebay to replace them with.

they werent the exact fans but after some splicing and modding they worked.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

As long as it forces air through the fins you're fine. I don't run multigpu so there's plenty of space to mount a normal fan on top if a fan would break.

 

[cbn]

As long as it forces air through the fins you're fine. I don't run multigpu so there's plenty of space to mount a normal fan on top if a fan would break.

I was able to do that with the following HD4870 1GB card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150436

This by removing the shroud and using a case fan on top of the fins. Power to the case fan came from a motherboard fan header.

Trouble is eventually the card would no longer play at higher detail settings without rebooting. As I recall temps on GPU were fine though.

 

[cbn]

Looking at R9 Nano, this might end up being one of those cards that is repairable with a single case fan (due to R9 Nano's short length):

Although with that mentioned, I am concerned about VRM cooling with the crude case fan repair technique (a factor that I wonder might have led to my own "case fan cooled" HD4870's earlier than expected demise).

In any event, lets hope these cards have easy to source fans (so a proper repair can be made if necessary).

 

[cbn]

Glad to see this design come out:

http://www.xfxforce.com/en-us/products/xfx-hard-swap-fans

 

[Accord99]

Aliexpress, that's where I've found replacement fans for Sapphire, MSI and XFX and HSI cards.