This gen, NV has the best reference cooler design ever?

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Feb 19, 2009
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EVGA GTX670 vanilla, MSI GTX670 OC, 2x GTX650 TI boost, all had that loud racket blower fan. My GTX 670 FTWs on the other hand were nice and quiet.

The EVGA FTW have the same cooler as the normal model..

This is the one I got (for $299 in Australia its dirt cheap!): http://www.leadtek.com/eng/product/1/634/intro.aspx

The PCB is the short "gimped" one.

Im not oblivious to noise, in fact, that's the major thing I hate about rigs and try to minimize noise as much as possible (without going all H20). But I used to have ref 5850s, and 7970.. this gtx670 is damn silent in comparison to those.

In fact, I have two rigs in my sig side by side, they are both silent. The PCS+ is one of the quietest 7950s out there. That to me, is a winning ref design for NV.

6YhEalq.jpg
 
Feb 19, 2009
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I'd have to agree that the 670 referencee design is a cheap joke. Fortunately GK104 itself is a very efficient chip and doesn't need anything elaborate, but the cooler is a joke.

On the other hand, I do agree that the Titan shroud is the best reference design ever made.

You'd think so, but the 670 uses more power than 7950, but the reference 7950 is very noisy. Its the fan that AMD uses, lots of tiny blades = high CFM air rushing through small gaps = noisy as heck.

power_peak.gif


I did a google search on the 670/680 cooler, and I think Toyota has a point since some users complaint of a low (ball bearing??) hum at idle.. mine does not have it, could be a QC issue. Regardless, it shows that blower fans with larger blades and wider intake can drop noise a great deal. I hope the next gen of ref designs from both companies use this fan design.
 

2is

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2012
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680 coolers are quiet with their default fan profile. However, if you want to keep your boost clocks from throttling, you need to keep the GPU under 70C, and the fan profile required to do that makes them quite loud.
 

Rvenger

Elite Member <br> Super Moderator <br> Video Cards
Apr 6, 2004
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660ti and 670 FTW has the 680 reference PCB and cooler and vanilla does not. Where are you getting your information?
 
Feb 19, 2009
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660ti and 670 FTW has the 680 reference PCB and cooler and vanilla does not. Where are you getting your information?

The heatsink differs but the fan looks the same?? I tried to find additional info on the fan model but a bunch of review sites don't mention it..

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/866-4/releves-thermographie-infrarouge.html

Similar dbA under load vs gtx680.

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/857-7/releves-thermographie-infrarouge.html

Here, the 7970 ref fan at 47% is already more louder. As in my own experience, anything above 40% on AMD ref fan is loud, at >50% its jet engine annoying. The gtx670 fan up to 50% is quiet, but it ramps up really quickly from 55% to become loud.. seems like some sort of CFM threshold through the intake gaps. Either way I'm a happy camper, under load, benchmarks and games the fan speed stay around 45%.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
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Here, the 7970 ref fan at 47% is already more louder. As in my own experience, anything above 40% on AMD ref fan is loud, at >50% its jet engine annoying. The gtx670 fan up to 50% is quiet, but it ramps up really quickly from 55% to become loud.. seems like some sort of CFM threshold through the intake gaps. Either way I'm a happy camper, under load, benchmarks and games the fan speed stay around 45%.

While I don't disagree that NV's reference blowers are superior to AMD's, for me to maintain similar temperatures on the 4890 and 6950 I needed to set the fan speed at only 35-38% and on the GTX470 I had to crank it to 65-75%. Therefore, the fan speeds are not directly comparable. You do not need to have the reference design blower on AMD cards to work at 47-50% to maintain reasonable temperatures. You can just set up a custom fan curve in MSI AB and cap the AMD's blower at 38%.

Regardless, because HD7950/7970 cards are excellent overclockers, from the very beginning it was generally advised to go with after-market coolers for them as their reference cooler+blower fan design are terrible for overclocking.

I have to agree with others on the cooler for the 670 you have linked - it's junky. The 670 uses less power than a 7970. Put that 670 heatsink on the 7970 and the card would overheat in no time at only 35% fan speed, while 7970 works just fine at 35%.

NV-GTX-670-12.jpg


Your comparison of the 670 to the 7950 PCS+ isn't apples-to-apples. Your 7950 is heavily overclocked to 1.2ghz while 670 is slower. What would happen if you overclocked your 670 to 1230-1260mhz? Isn't that a proper comparison? Max OC 670 vs. Max OC 7950 to assess the quality of their coolers?

The best reference coolers on the NV cards are on Titan/780 and 690. Compared to those the 670's cooler is budget/low rent. I agree that AMD needs to redesign their blower though.
 
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wand3r3r

Diamond Member
May 16, 2008
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OP is mysterious.

690/Titan/780 have a good cooler, undoubtedly.

The 670 reference has the cheapest pcb and cooler they could possibly wring out. It's a mid range card after all, but they appeared to only place effort on cutting costs.

AMD could clearly use some lessons on reference coolers.
 
Feb 19, 2009
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While I don't disagree that NV's reference blowers are superior to AMD's, for me to maintain similar temperatures on the 4890 and 6950 I needed to set the fan speed at only 35-38% and on the GTX470 I had to crank it to 65-75%. Therefore, the fan speeds are not directly comparable. You do not need to have the reference design blower on AMD cards to work at 47-50% to maintain reasonable temperatures. You can just set up a custom fan curve in MSI AB and cap the AMD's blower at 38%.

The best reference coolers on the NV cards are on Titan/780 and 690. Compared to those the 670's cooler is budget/low rent. I agree that AMD needs to redesign their blower though.

My 7970 needed 50% fan speed during bit mining out of the box, after a new TIM application it was staying around 45%.

There's no doubt the reference 670 has a junk heatsink, I've already mentioned that it feels like half the weight of the 7970 and ref 7950 copper sink, but it gets the job done while being very quiet in comparison (Thanks to the larger/wider intake fan!!).

AMD definitely need to put their focus more on their next reference design, it seems like every generation they keep the same fan design.
 

TidusZ

Golden Member
Nov 13, 2007
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IMO the stock cooler on my 680 is the best reference cooling experience I've had, but probably due to the fact the card doesn't need that much cooling more than the cooler being any better than other reference blowers
 

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
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IMO the stock cooler on my 680 is the best reference cooling experience I've had, but probably due to the fact the card doesn't need that much cooling more than the cooler being any better than other reference blowers
my reference 260 cooler was quieter and cooled just as well as the reference 680 cooler even though it was a much hungrier gpu on the 260.
 

bystander36

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2013
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I can say I was very surprised by how well the 680 performed. It was much quieter than my previous cards. That's coming from 6950, 5870 and 470. At the same fan speeds, the 680's fan was very quiet in comparison. The 470 might not have been so loud if the thing didn't have to run at such a high speed.