Motorheader
Diamond Member
Since it appears that with every iteration of GPU's requires less and less overall power consumption due to changes and updates in die size and overall thermal efficiency, I am curious if anyone has ever tried (read this as been brave enough) to run their more recent video cards (NVIDIA, Radeon, etc.) WITHOUT a fan and installed a fanless heatsink.
When I had a Guillemot Maxi Gamer a few years back, Tech Support REFUSED TO replace my video card until I attached a 486 heatsink to the chip on the video card and determined that the issue that I was having with lockups and blue screens was definitely related to the chip overheating - due to the fact that THEY did not include a heatsink on the Video Card. Well DUH, of course it was a thermal related problem. Also, the original TNT was quite a hot running chip, but it still only had a heatsink.
Anyhow, I look at these SUPPOSED thermal solutions on some of these modern GPU's and wonder how much of a difference those almost finless heatsinks make in overall cooling. The dissipation of air for cooling efficiency on what is basically a flat piece of metal appears to me to actaully be NOT very efficient.
Please note, I am not addressing overclocking - I am addressing how something is "designed" to work out of the packge.
When I had a Guillemot Maxi Gamer a few years back, Tech Support REFUSED TO replace my video card until I attached a 486 heatsink to the chip on the video card and determined that the issue that I was having with lockups and blue screens was definitely related to the chip overheating - due to the fact that THEY did not include a heatsink on the Video Card. Well DUH, of course it was a thermal related problem. Also, the original TNT was quite a hot running chip, but it still only had a heatsink.
Anyhow, I look at these SUPPOSED thermal solutions on some of these modern GPU's and wonder how much of a difference those almost finless heatsinks make in overall cooling. The dissipation of air for cooling efficiency on what is basically a flat piece of metal appears to me to actaully be NOT very efficient.
Please note, I am not addressing overclocking - I am addressing how something is "designed" to work out of the packge.
