Will Nvidia Match the Fury X cooler with Pascal?

[tviceman]

I hope water cooling doesn't become the only standard at the high end. I'd hate to see those premiums (cost) pushed on to consumers without choices.

 

[railven]

The kind of cooler that looks great in reviews on open-bench test systems, but does a terrible job as soon as you put it in a case...

I assume it matters on the case? I recall when I switched my HD 7970 to an accelero extreme, all my temps went down (GPU/CPU/RAM/HDDs). Of course I had a nice big case with a 240mm^2 sitting over the GPU that I swapped to exhaust. It just sucked out the hot air almost instantly.

If you have bad/terrible airflow, naturally that style of cooler will make things worse.

 

[n0x1ous]

I hope Nvidia goes CLC as its so nice (now that I got a good pump after 2 RMA's) to have the Fury X CLC. It looks good and works well. temps never go past 55C and I also appreciate the great static pressure fan they used. Its amazing how much heat that thing pushes out the radiator spinning at only 15%. Its never gone past 17% in gaming for me.

The only time I can even hear the card is when I first boot the PC and the pump spins 100% for 2 seconds. After that I don't hear anything at idle or gaming.

 

[Spanners]

Lower temperature=Lower power consumption. Without the water cooler the Fury X would be 30-50W more.

I understand the principle but I don't agree that it would equate to a 30-50W difference. The point of disagreement was that they "needed" to use water which I still don't agree with.

 

[Headfoot]

I think water is nice, no doubt, but Sapphire just blew it out of the park with their triple fan Fury, I expect at least a few imitators. With the room saved by HBM, that design could really take off next year, as long as you don't mind staying with long cards. Card design should be really interesting with the next round, when basically all cards could have a "nano" version or the extended heatsink/fan for crazy cooling/noise potential. It'll be interesting to see what companies bet on, or if they release one of everything.

Yes, I agree with this. That sapphire fury card is truly incredible for air cooled

 

[Sabrewings]

I hope not. CLCs are for kiddies. I'd rather not have to waste money buying something that is just going into the trash for a real waterblock.

 

[n0x1ous]

I hope not. CLCs are for kiddies. I'd rather not have to waste money buying something that is just going into the trash for a real waterblock.

you're already taking something off no matter what then. if it becomes common enough the CLC probably wouldn't have a BOM higher than a typical air cooler so should make no difference to custom water coolers.

 

[tential]

Bingo! Here's the answer. For me, since I custom water cool and EK makes a block, I'm fine.

For users like yourself nvidia and amd should offer cards with no cooler. Even if it's the same price at least you wouldn't have to remove a cooler.

My whole point is it doesn't feel like high-end customers are getting enough. Fury x is a good start. I want nvidia and amd to compete hard to deliver us amazing products with amazing build quality.

I'll update the op if possible but it isn't restricted to wc coolers. Sapphire fury cooler is good I'm just sayin we deserve great cooling when you pay 500-1000.

 

[Sabrewings]

you're already taking something off no matter what then. if it becomes common enough the CLC probably wouldn't have a BOM higher than a typical air cooler so should make no difference to custom water coolers.

That's absurd. CLC will never have a BOM like a blower cooler. Single moving part, cast metal, easy construction. Vs, pump and fan moving parts, hoses, fluid, electrical for both items, etc.

Sure, I'm going to be throwing away something (until bare cards become a thing, I can keep dreaming there), but I'd rather pay less to throw it away. CLCs will be more expensive to the end user. Look at the cost of the hybrids.

 

[n0x1ous]

That's absurd. CLC will never have a BOM like a blower cooler. Single moving part, cast metal, easy construction. Vs, pump and fan moving parts, hoses, fluid, electrical for both items, etc.

Sure, I'm going to be throwing away something (until bare cards become a thing, I can keep dreaming there), but I'd rather pay less to throw it away. CLCs will be more expensive to the end user. Look at the cost of the hybrids.

Nvidia's blower cooler cost a pretty penny when introduced. It might make a difference on a low end card where there is already low margin profit, but on flagship parts I don't see it being a big factor.

i do agree they should sell naked board's though for you guys. Would make sense for everyone.

 

[kasakka]

I would love to see all of the top end Nvidia GPUs come with an AIO cooler. Mounting one on my MSI 980 Ti Gaming made a big difference in temps, overclocks and noise and the overall cost was about the same as the EVGA Hybrid that comes with it from factory.

I doubt Nvidia will offer a reference model with an AIO cooler as that would instantly make custom models from ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte etc largely irrelevant. Plus they would want to avoid their users having to figure out if they can fit an AIO or two inside their case.

I'd say that with 14nm cards the coolers will stay largely the same.

 

[happy medium]

Do you think Nvidia will match this?

I hope not. I don't want a 300 watt spaceheater in my case. I would hope that Nvidia keeps making power efficient cards and not cards that need water cooling to perform well.

I think AMD uses water because they have to and because there cards are too hot and use to much energy.

 

[bystander36]

I don't expect Nvidia to do so unless required to make it cool and reasonably quiet. Not everyone wants to find space to mount the radiator, and it does add cost to the card, like it or not.

If this is something that enough people like, you can expect more aftermarket models featuring such cooling. This belongs on aftermarket cards, not reference cards, unless pretty much required.

 

[iiiankiii]

I hope not. I don't want a 300 watt spaceheater in my case. I would hope that Nvidia keeps making power efficient cards and not cards that need water cooling to perform well.

I think AMD uses water because they have to and because there cards are too hot and use to much energy.

High end is high end. All high end cards from Nvidia are also space heaters. That Titan X/GTX 980TI is a space heater (+250 watts). Kepler is a space heater. What you're asking for does not exist. At the high end, they all use high amount of energy.

AMD doesn't need water. Take a look at the Fury lineup. They're all air cooled with low temperature and noise.

I think you're giving Nvidia too much credit when regarding power consumption. Yes, AMD's high end use a bit more power than Nvidia's. It just isn't that much more. Fiji pretty much narrow the gap enough to where it doesn't matter much.

 

[Spanners]

I hope not. I don't want a 300 watt spaceheater in my case. I would hope that Nvidia keeps making power efficient cards and not cards that need water cooling to perform well.

I think AMD uses water because they have to and because there cards are too hot and use to much energy.

You have a 300W "spaceheater" already, well 2x 150W anyway assuming your sig is correct.

Also I've seen nothing proving the statement that they "need" water cooling.

I think you're mistaken.

 

[Absolute0]

"Need" is a relative word but as stated previously Fury X has WCing because on air the higher temperature would decrease the efficiency and in turn increase TDP. TDP would be over >300.

They don't need TDP under 300 but I think on paper the Fury X looks meh next to the 980 TI anyway; add significantly more TDP and on paper it's a very clear loser.

 

[happy medium]

You have a 300W "spaceheater" already, well 2x 150W anyway assuming your sig is correct

Na that system is heating my moms bedroom.

I revised my signature for ya

 

[RussianSensation]

I hope water cooling doesn't become the only standard at the high end. I'd hate to see those premiums (cost) pushed on to consumers without choices.

That's not going to happen unless they push TDP to 400-500W. Nothing precluded AMD from dropping the spectacular Sapphire Tri-X cooler on the Fury X.

Considering the total system power usage of flagship cards like 980Ti/Fury OC and Fury X....

...and yet still achieving 75C temperatures...

...at remarkable noise levels at load (!)...

...there is no reason to suggest a 300W quiet air-cooled flagship 16nm HBM2 GPU cannot exist. Just because a high-TDP GPU is water-cooled doesn't mean that water-cooling/CLC is required.

From real world testing, the Sapphire Tri-X Fury OC is arguably the quietest modern high-end card ever made and that's even more impressive given its 275W TDP. Once again, that tells us, nothing precludes NV from providing both an air-cooled and water-cooled flagship 250-300W Pascal card. What is becoming obvious though and it has been evident already with GTX780Ti but finally more and more objective gamers are opening their eyes/perspective in 2015 after using a reference blower 980Ti that the reference blower fan severely limits overclocking headroom, results in a loud videocard and is frankly poor in its stock performance (i.e., high temps) on a GPU that costs $650-700. In any case, high-end gamers just want options and it would benefit all of us if NV/AMD provided them.

"Need" is a relative word but as stated previously Fury X has WCing because on air the higher temperature would decrease the efficiency and in turn increase TDP. TDP would be over >300.

That's not the primary reason because a 7-heatpipe cooler such as the one found on Sapphire Tri-X Fury OC can easily cope with 300 watt of power usage at 75C at basically inaudible noise levels inside a closed system case. The impact on TDP would hardly be material in this case given how much headroom is available on such air coolers to turn up the fan speed and/or increase the thermal temperature headroom beyond 75C. The #1 reason AMD went WC on Fury X is because it was impossible to make a card as small with a conventional air heatsink. The second reason is that having a WC CLC included sends a message that the product is far more premium. The third reason is that AMD probably couldn't have designed a better air cooled heatsink vs. an after-market WC CLC because we know they couldn't do it with HD7990, HD6990, HD7970Ghz, R9 290X. Therefore, from a cost-benefit analysis, it makes more sense to use a superior after-market CLC option than end up with a hot and loud (50.5 dBA) reference card aka 980Ti reference blower. Blowers really are inefficient when it comes to 250W+ TDP flagship cards. In comparison the Sapphire Fury Tri-X measures at only 31.5 dBA under the same test equipment!

They don't need TDP under 300 but I think on paper the Fury X looks meh next to the 980 TI anyway; add significantly more TDP and on paper it's a very clear loser.

Since both cards have already been released, it's a moot point imo to compare them on paper and try to extrapolate their real world power usage from on paper TDP ratings since we already know their real world power usage. Sure the 980Ti is slightly more power efficient but in a modern rig that is using 380-400W of power with these 250W cards, it's not what is the main killer for why the Fury X is currently unattractive for most gamers.

Where Fury X failed are price/performance and overclocking headroom. And BTW, TDP =! power usage so not sure by what you mean significantly more TDP. The actual power usage of Fury X and 980Ti is very similar, especially once we start comparing total system perf/watt of an i5/i7 Fury X system vs. i5/i7 980Ti system. Where 980TI clobbers the Fury X is overclocking headroom/scaling and having bonus 50% more VRAM for more or less the same price. If Fury X could also overclock 25%, then things would have been extremely close this generation. I don't believe the type of gamers buying $650+ flagship cards care about +/-50W of power usage on high-end i7 rigs especially since they likely overclock their i7 CPUs and GPUs as well which exponentially hurts perf/watt of the entire system. I am pretty sure if Fury X was actually faster in overclocked states against an overclocked 980Ti, the power usage figures wouldn't be a big deal in this market segment where top performance + overclocking and brand loyalty are king. Historically speaking, 70% of high-end buyers were NV users and I presume it's far higher nowadays, approaching 80-90%. For that reason, it would really benefit the enthusiast market segment if NV's Pascal had WC CLC reference card, as well as AIB air-cooled cards and since there is still a market for it, even reference blower Pascal cards. Having 3 of these choices provides the consumers with the best buying decision to make since all 3 types of cooling solutions will have factory warranty

Knowing NV though, they will probably charge $80-100 more on top of their reference blower Pascal GP100 card for the CLC version if they decide to go with a CLC reference card option. I still think NV has another incentive to bring out the CLC and that is to provide high-end enthusiast with a high-end performance 6-7 inch small-form factor flagship GPU offering.

 

[tential]

I agree RS completely. I wish I had wrote this thread better in the beginning. I want AMAZINGLY cooled cards. Not just "ok that's alright I guess even though I'm spending $500+." That's ridiculous. 980Ti models, the performance is great, but I want AMAZING cooling too.

That Fury Card is nice. I was going to get the Fury X.... but meh, maybe I'll save money and get that model with a Wasabi UHD650. I got time, can't get a new card without the monitor.

I don't have qualms paying money for these high end products, it's that I don't think proper care has really been taken for a LOT of them. I struggle to see how some AIBs could think it acceptable to release some of the coolers they have on cards.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

If I'm going to be spending 500+ USD on a piece of hardware, yeah I'd want good cooling as well.

 

[tential]

If I'm going to be spending 500+ USD on a piece of hardware, yeah I'd want good cooling as well.

Pretty much was the point of the thread but it seems many users want cheap as possible....

I just don't see how a reference cooler like the 980Ti, or the 290x cooler is acceptable on your highest end product. I don't care if it's a "reference" design, do they feel no shame in selling a person a $650 card with something that is just literally gross. If you gave me a free 980Ti with a reference cooler right now and said I could never take it off, sell it, trade it, etc. I could either use it or not. I'd dumpster it.

That Fury cooler though....
I think AMD made a smart move dropping reference cooling. Review sites now will have far better comparison numbers for noise. If they don't officially publish a "stock" clock that'd be hilarious to see what review sites do with that.

 

[Silverforce11]

Good reference design is much needed at the top with these 250-300W GPUs, blowers are just horrid for the task.

As for options, AIBs will make plenty of custom designs to differentiate themselves.

 

[bystander36]

1 more reason why you won't probably won't see a water cooling system on reference cards as the normal is because it will kill off the aftermarket cooling systems that are provided by the different brands. Allowing the Sapphire, MSI, ASUS, etc. to have different custom solutions allows for them to compete with each other on more than just price.

 

[RussianSensation]

1 more reason why you won't probably won't see a water cooling system on reference cards as the normal is because it will kill off the aftermarket cooling systems that are provided by the different brands. Allowing the Sapphire, MSI, ASUS, etc. to have different custom solutions allows for them to compete with each other on more than just price.

I don't see why having a WC reference card and having after-market Sapphire, MSI, Asus, EVGA has to be mutually exclusive. Certain PC gamers do not care to pay a premium for a miniITX-sized WC GPU like the Fury X or do not want water in their system. A more legitimate reason as well is that you cannot have the fan turn off on the radiator which means the after-market cards that turn off the fans at up to 60-65 or even 75C (!) will have an inherent advantage for 2D workloads and less intensive gaming. Conversely, someone building a small rig, going dual or even triple GPU will benefit immensely from having WC factory-warrantied reference cards that exhaust almost all of the heat out of the case. In those instances, an open air-cooled 500-600W multi-GPU setup will struggle in a poorly ventilated case, while you don't even have to think about dropping 2-3 WC 300W TDP cards into a Fractal Design case with poor airflow.

Think about yet another level of flagship cards that could arise from having WC as standard. The more WC reference cards become the new normal/acceptable in the high-end enthusiast circles, the more confidence AMD/NV will have in creating an even higher tier of flagship cards with >300W TDP. Imagine 1450mhz 980Ti with 3072 shaders reference cards out of the box? Not possible with a 980Ti blower without it sounding like a jet engine taking off and hitting almost 90C. With 120mm WC CLC, piece of cake.

Think about yet another chicken-and-egg situation. I bet a lot of PC gamers were reluctant to consider building a small(er) form factor PC because they didn't want to limit their GPU upgrade choices in the future since most flagship cards were > 10" since at least 2008. With a 120mm WC CLC, it's going to be viable to fit a 275W flagship GPU inside smaller cases, where as with a non-HBM & not WC flagship design, it's impossible to do so today on a wide-scale wrt to most case manufacturers due to the spacing constraints that arise between the GPU and the PSU:

With WC CLC reference card, this DIY limitation is completely out of the window. For OEMs, it'll allow them to create incredibly compact systems:

But even in a more conventional mini ITX case (i.e., let's say someone wants to use it as an HTPC in their living room), the poor airflow often forces gamers to go with a blower reference card like so:

But since a reference 980TI's blower goes to 50+ dBA, it makes it frustrating to try to build a quiet living room HTPC for your 4K gaming PC/monitor! After all, not all PC gamers desire to game on a 32" and below monitor at a desk. Having reference WC CLC flagship cards with factory warranty opens up a lot of potential for even more PC gamers moving from their man-cave into the living room since they will be able to fully utilize their > 40" 4K HDTV without requiring to sacrifice performance and noise levels, which today isn't possible in a small-form factor HTCP without going full custom WC loop.

Plus, there is the aesthetics factor and motherboard selection. With WC CLC reference cards, you practically don't even have to worry about case airflow or close the GPUs are to each other or how close the GPU is to the power supply at the bottom of the case.

And since we are discussing flagship Pascal cards, having WC standard will allow for dual-GP100 card (ala R9 295X2), which would provide an epic level of performance in just 2-slot configuration. Until R9 295X2, every single dual-chip card from AMD/NV has been a compromise in clock speeds vs. noise levels vs. temperatures. I think a $1500 dual-GP100 Pascal card built similarly to an R9 295X2 or even better with 1x240mm rad would actually be fairly popular in the ultra high-end PC gaming markets. On a mass scale though I do not see sub-$500 MSRP cards having WC reference as standard.

 

[bystander36]

Yes, there are problems with the reference designs of the past and it is good to have a better solution, but it shouldn't be better than the aftermarket versions. Nvidia creates a starting point, and their partners are then able to compete for your business with custom designs.

If Nvidia starts off with the highest end cooler, it leaves little room for their partners to be creative and earn your business. I doubt very much that their partners would be happy if all of a sudden, they have little room to improve the end users experience outside a few niche situations.