Reference cooler (NV's New Founder!) Yay or Nay poll!!!

[nerp]

A reference cooler would not help me out much. I have a Lian-Li PCA05B. It exhausts air out the front. Intake is the back. So my video card can't barf heat out the back else my 120mm fan inhales it all right back into the case. It probably wouldn't really matter all that much, but it's something to think about.

 

[railven]

I guess what surprises me, perhaps because I originally come form the AMD camp, is the the reference PCB isn't as highly sought. On the AMD side it was always encouraged to get a AMD PCB as "AMD over engineers their cards" and I would agree considering the cost of a ref model versus say a Lightning.

So NV Ref PCB aren't as robust? Good to know. I got a 980 Ti Ref because I needed a ref PCB. So this time I was going to go for something like the EVGA ACX models which is custom cooler ref PCB. Might just wait for something more robust like a MSI Gaming or Lightning.

 

[RussianSensation]

Getting AMD reference board has little to do with higher quality PCB over custom Sapphir/XFX/Gigabyte designs -- it was recommended to guarantee voltage control and water block support. Looks like you missed the key reasons why people wanted AMD name on the PCB by a country mile.

As far as NV goes, 1070/1080 reference will be meh:

- hotter
- louder
- worse components
- worse Boost clock (1080 thermal throttles already after minutes of gaming)
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080/29.html
- more expensive
- 5+1 power limits will likely limit top GPU/memory overclocks

For people who keep insisting that blowers are better for SLI, it's also wrong. Blowers are better for SLI on a mATX board without 3 slot spacing between PCIe 1 and 2 or if going 3-4 cards. Even with 2 MSI Gaming/Asus Strix 1080s, the system will be quieter and cooler in SLI on a normal ATX board. Lack of 0 dBA operation on reference cards for light gaming/2D desktop workloads is another negative.

MSI Gaming 1070 is also rumoured to have GDDR5X. Even more reason to skip blowers.

For $70-100 premiums, I expect nothing less than R9 295X2/Fury X/EVGA Hybrid AIO CLC. AIO CLC combines the best of the blower and open air cooling design into 1.

My Max overclocked 295x2 with a single 120mm AIO CLC maxes out at 74C in the summer. AIO CLC is a game changer. Hope AMD has it for Vega HBM2.

Once we see 2.3-2.4Ghz OC AIB cards, it would be foolish to buy an FE card and leave an extra 10-15% performance on the table when spending $700!

 

[DooKey]

Custom everything for me. Not buying a FE.

 

[thesmokingman]

I guess what surprises me, perhaps because I originally come form the AMD camp, is the the reference PCB isn't as highly sought. On the AMD side it was always encouraged to get a AMD PCB as "AMD over engineers their cards" and I would agree considering the cost of a ref model versus say a Lightning.

So NV Ref PCB aren't as robust? Good to know. I got a 980 Ti Ref because I needed a ref PCB. So this time I was going to go for something like the EVGA ACX models which is custom cooler ref PCB. Might just wait for something more robust like a MSI Gaming or Lightning.

AMD ref designs are generally built to last the duration. lol, I remember pumping nearly 1.6v into the 290x reference pcb. It held together to get some short lived WR runs in. I wouldn't recommend obviously running that sort of voltage but its good to know it won't turn to popcorn so easily.

 

[railven]

AMD ref designs are generally built to last the duration. lol, I remember pumping nearly 1.6v into the 290x reference pcb. It held together to get some short lived WR runs in. I wouldn't recommend obviously running that sort of voltage but its good to know it won't turn to popcorn so easily.

That's what I remember, why I always got a ref AMD card. EDIT: My 290X is a ref, but took that blower off and stuck a Corsair HG10-A1 on it.

Dunno why russian is all bent out of shape, what a miser.

 

[Elixer]

That's what I remember, why I always got a ref AMD card. EDIT: My 290X is a ref, but took that blower off and stuck a Corsair HG10-A1 on it.

Dunno why russian is all bent out of shape, what a miser.

He makes valid points, not sure why you think otherwise.

I never did like blower style designs, they are just too limiting, however, for whatever reason it seems lots of people like them, so much so that even companies like XFX started to offer them again instead of their much better cooler option that they have.

 

[thesmokingman]

He makes valid points, not sure why you think otherwise.

I never did like blower style designs, they are just too limiting, however, for whatever reason it seems lots of people like them, so much so that even companies like XFX started to offer them again instead of their much better cooler option that they have.

It's a bit more detailed than just voltage or components. True ref designs don't deviate from AMD design ensuring proper vreg support, waterblock support, and component consistency. The problem with customs on AMD side is that they can change anything and they often did. Thus we had serious fragmentation of the reference design. Some board makers liek Sapphire went full retard making up to 6 iterations of the same model, 7950. Some like MSI had a brain fart and just started slapping components all over the pcb for no good reason, msi gaming 4g v2.

Some of us didn't just go for true reference for those reasons, but they all counted. I found my best overclockers were reference cards, excepting my current trio of lightnings.

 

[railven]

He makes valid points, not sure why you think otherwise.

I didn't say he didn't. The "missed the point by a country mile" wasn't needed. Haha.

 

[neviir]

I prefer reference as I often use SLI, but I'm not keen on paying a premium for reference. As long as it is a solid, quiet board with no coil whine I'm generally fine. And I'm definitely not doing SLI with a $200 marketing penalty.

What makes a reference card preferable for SLI?

 

[Dribble]

What makes a reference card preferable for SLI?

Basically it was designed for use with SLi - i.e. in an SLi setup it will still get enough air, and it blows heat out of the case not around it. Most aftermarket ones won't work well SLi as they are taller and don't blow hot air out of the case so your case gets hot and one of the cards in particular gets starved of cool air. Obviously ideally you'd water cool but that's a lot more hassle to setup, is less reliable and more expensive.

The reference cooler would also be good for small form factor cases where there's not much room, and you don't want the hot air kept in the case.

 

[hawtdawg]

I had reference 780's in SLI, and switched to G1 gaming 980ti's. Both can put out some noise if being pushed, but the blower design noise isn't as annoying imo. The G1 fans have a more high-pitched whine to them once they get up to a certain speed. It might not technically be as loud, but it's more annoying. The blower cards just sound like air moving.

Whenever I upgrade again, i'll probably do a custom loop.

 

[HiroThreading]

Reference all the way. I loathe open air coolers. They roast the surrounding components in the case (particularly sound cards and M.2 SSDs), dump a huge amount of heat in the case and often go beyond the 2 slot PCIE restriction.

...I also dislike the stupid dragon, "bling bling" gam4r designs that a lot of non-reference designs sport.

However, Nvidia's pricing strategy is disappointing to say the least.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Reference all the way. I loathe open air coolers. They roast the surrounding components in the case (particularly sound cards and M.2 SSDs), dump a huge amount of heat in the case and often go beyond the 2 slot PCIE restriction.

...I also dislike the stupid dragon, "bling bling" gam4r designs that a lot of non-reference designs sport.

However, Nvidia's pricing strategy is disappointing to say the least.

There will no doubt be non reference blower versions that will be cheaper than open air aftermarket.

 

[railven]

I'm definitely going to go with a CLC design. Hopefully one with a robust PCB for more clocks.

Only fan I like now is the Lightning. But reason I want to go with a CLC is because I no longer have side panel fans. And I'd like the hot air from the GPU to expel directly outside my case.

 

[.vodka]

In nV's case, custom everything.


As far as it goes for the 1080, this video shows that even with decent after market cooling and the GPU at 50°C load, it can't go past 2-2.1GHz without throttling. That could be due to the gimped power delivery:

Come on, that VRM could be much beefier if they wanted it to be. Almost half is unpopulated. Hell, the board seems to be able to take another 8 pin power connector! If you're going all the way to sell the classic reference design as the "founder's edition", have it use the blower (that can't even compete with aftermarket cooling, unless you do need the hot air directly exhausted) and rip people off even more with an extra $100 apart from selling Gx104 chips at Gx100 prices for the past few generations, at least have the decency to sell a fully populated board that can take a beating, especially for those who are going to watercool your reference design.

I remember the GTX 590, its reference board was so weak these cards were blowing their VRMs up with a little OC. That's where nV probably found the bottom of how much they could get away with saving a penny here and there with the board.

There's also the usual BIOS limits nV puts in place that are a nuisance if you have a well cooled card. This, thankfully, isn't a problem once bios modders get their hands on the stuff.


So yeah, unless you can't wait for decent custom boards that are also going to be probably cheaper than the rip off edition, you'll be getting much more for your money. Those rumors of custom boards doing 2.4-2.5GHz on water/decent air cooling that were circulating the past week or so are probably true consdering all of this. If partners are releasing their custom cards on the same day as the rip off edition is available, it's gonna be fun seeing the reference boards drop in price since nobody's buying them.




For AMD, their reference boards historically seem to be better built and do have potential for use with a waterblock. nV could learn a thing or two from them on this regard. nV's reference blower is ok, they just can't pretend to charge more for it over an aftermarket card that is better in nearly every way.

 

[MrTeal]

Interesting how the card in the TPU review has a bunch of polymer caps on the 12V side (the black rectangle things with a + to the right of the VRM). The one on the AT review (and many others) don't have those populated.

 

[guskline]

Since I custom water cool I try to buy a PCB built with better components and better Power supply so If I overclock it's worth it.

The FE GTX 1080 probably doesn't warrant a purchase if you custom water cool but we shall see once the boards get out into circulation.