[SOLVED] Blower style GPU or aftermarket alternative?

Andyharris84

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Hello,

I am about to purchase the RX 5700 XT and I'm stuck on which model to go for. I've read reviews that the stock 'blower' style GPU is loud and runs hot and I should wait for the aftermarket versions as they have far greater cooling. Looking at the price difference between the two I was hoping to get peoples opinions on whether or not the aftermarket route is the better option?

The MSI Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB Graphics Card is £377 against Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Pulse 8GB Graphics Card at £424 or the much more expensive ASUS Radeon RX 5700 XT ROG Strix 8GB Graphics Card at £499. Is the additional money worth it? I have the Corsair Carbide Series Spec Delta case which has 4 120mm fans and the Ryzen 5 3600 x with Wraith cooler and was hoping my cooling is already sufficient.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks
 
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Do not get upset about a problem you will likely not have.
I have used blower type cards for a long time.
They take pressure of your case cooling needs.
I have no heat or noise issues with a GTX1080ti in a M-ATX case.
Yes, graphics cards do run hot, but they are built to take it.

elderMat7

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The cons of a blower style as you said are: loudness, high temperature and not a lot of room for overclocking (if any). Now, if thats not a problem for you, go for it. The card is designed that way and will last a long time. If you don't want so much heat and noise coming out of your case, of course wait for the aftermarket versions. If you dont mind those things, pick up the blower style. Also if you dont have enough air flow you shouldn't get the aftermarket one because they blow the heat towards the side of the case unlike the blower style ones which exhaust thru the back of it. If you don't have enough airflow, all of that hot air is going to stay in your case, raising the temperatures therefore blower style is the way to go. If you have a couple of good fans and a bigger case you should have no problems with the aftermarket ones.
 
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Andyharris84

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Thanks for your opinion nikomateev. It's pretty much confirmed what I thought and I suppose it really just comes down to how much you want to or, can afford to spend as I'm okay with the noise and I'll not be overclocking. I was just concerned the GPU might run too hot which could cause problems.
 

Karadjgne

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Both designs have advantages and disadvantages. It highly depends on your situation which would be better, or personal choice.

Blowers are a little louder, but gaming wearing headphones with a silenced case, that's not an issue. Blowers do run a little warmer but at stock settings, that's not really an issue either.

Blowers do have 2x distinct advantages though, they'll work in any case, from htpc to mITX to full tower, simply due to physical height of the card not being much of a factor. Many axial designs have very deep shrouds and fans that stick out, so a dual slot card is more often 3 slots. Which can preclude sli/CF mounting, vertical mounts etc.

Blowers are also directional airflow. In tighter spaces or hotter cases, they can act as a self exhaust, so where an axial design will sit and cook in its own exhaust, a blower dumps it out the back.

Axials have the advantage in cooling. Larger heatsinks, heatpipes, fans can mean lower overall temps, more OC overhead, lower noise potential. But they depend on case ventilation for sufficient airflow over the heatsink to obtain those lower temps. With most pc's not interested in sli/CF, running mATX/ATX mid towers etc, ventilation isn't usually an issue. With the minimal gains to gpu OC, over powered cpus, fps already beyond monitor refresh, most forego gpu OC and just plug and play, so excessive cooling only becomes a factor in heavy usage, such as high resolution or rendering etc.

So, it's more a personal choice, situational choice as to whether it'd be better to wait for AIB axial cards or jump on the factory setting blowers, almost all brands running the same amd specs for clocks and boosts.
 
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Andyharris84

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Wow, thanks so much for your detailed response. It's super informative and really helpful, I appreciate you taking the time to post a response. I've weighed up all the pros and cons and I'm comfortable to go with the blower style card so that's what I've ordered. I cant see me taking full advantage of what the AIB cards bring to the party, so for me, I cant justify the additional money. I'd rather put that towards a new monitor as I suspect that's going to be one of the items I'll upgrade the least.

Thanks again
 

Karadjgne

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Heh, true. You'd be amazed at the sheer amount of ppl pushing to get 2060's or 1660ti's paired with high-end OC cpus, yet still running a 1080p/60Hz single monitor because that's what they've been using for the last few years and it still works. All they seem to care about is the fps counter at ultra graphics on-screen.
 

Karadjgne

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So we are back to junky amd drivers again. Sheesh. Thought that was an Era that was over with 2-3 years ago.

And after that review, yeah, I'd tend to agree that unless you needed a blower style card, the AIB partner cards are considerably better in terms of thermals and noise.
 
Hello,

I am about to purchase the RX 5700 XT and I'm stuck on which model to go for. I've read reviews that the stock 'blower' style GPU is loud and runs hot and I should wait for the aftermarket versions as they have far greater cooling. Looking at the price difference between the two I was hoping to get peoples opinions on whether or not the aftermarket route is the better option?

The MSI Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB Graphics Card is £377 against Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Pulse 8GB Graphics Card at £424 or the much more expensive ASUS Radeon RX 5700 XT ROG Strix 8GB Graphics Card at £499. Is the additional money worth it? I have the Corsair Carbide Series Spec Delta case which has 4 120mm fans and the Ryzen 5 3600 x with Wraith cooler and was hoping my cooling is already sufficient.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks

Well here's the deal:

Running cooler will NOT get you that much in terms of frame rates. Even overclocked you'll only get about a 10% improvement.

That said aftermarket coolers are a ton quieter and will without a doubt increase the longevity of the components on your card. If you plan to keep it a number of years, or are concerned about how quiet it is, I would go with aftermarket for sure.

That said the Power Color Red Devil 5700XT is $450. And that is whisper quiet with separate 5 heat pipes on a large copper cold plate. Hardware unboxed did a review of it recently and it looks really nice.

Given the option, I should have waited. Adding after market cooling to my blower style 5700XT looks like a dicey proposition with people having memory overheating issues. But if I am going this route, I'm thinking Morpheus cooling, which adds $100 to the price tag, the time memory heat sinks and fans are added.
 
I'd be interested in knowing what sort of undervolting potential AMD has left on the table with Navi. On Polaris & Vega, they were pretty darn conservative with their auto voltages. With past cards that had worse blowers, undervolting was the bees knees for bringing those cards to a "tolerable" noise/temp level.

I've tweaked around with Polaris cards enough to know that you can pretty ubiquitously lower voltages by 50mV across the board, sometimes more depending on what you're using as a stock/auto reference point. That generally equates to about 30-40W power savings without ANY change to the core clocks. That may not sound like much, but having pushed too close to the edge on voltage a number of times during testing, you can DEFINITELY tell the difference when the driver crashes and puts you back on auto voltage.
 
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TJ Hooker

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Do not get upset about a problem you will likely not have.
I have used blower type cards for a long time.
They take pressure of your case cooling needs.
I have no heat or noise issues with a GTX1080ti in a M-ATX case.
Yes, graphics cards do run hot, but they are built to take it.
 
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