News Cooler Master wants to replace your graphics card's 3 fans with its own, 2-fan solution

[Admin]

A prototype video card cooler replace promises better temps with less noise.

Cooler Master wants to replace your graphics card's 3 fans with its own, 2-fan solution : Read more

 

[AgentBirdnest]

Second, many users might be wary of removing their graphics card's stock fans for fear of damaging the card and voiding its warranty. And, finally, users might like the aesthetics of the graphics card they bought and not want a white or gray shield covering it up.

These were my first two thoughts. Those who are comfortable with removing the stock fans are probably a lot more comfortable with water cooling, as well (and if this is aimed toward 4080-4090 cards, then cost isn't as much of an issue for them.)

I think aesthetics are probably the bigger concern... I think few people would want to cover up the logos, RGB, and snazzy designs on their high-priced graphics cards with this chunky thing. Replace that prestigious magnetic "SUPRIM" or ARGB "Republic of Gamers" logo with a good ol' emblazoned "CoolerMaster" ? Even if they do pretty it up and add RGB, it would be like covering your laptop's Apple logo with a Dell one. I don't think many people will go for that.

With all that said, I'd love to see how it performs, and if it really lives up to the claims.

 

[husker]

Do they sell a kit to make my Ferrari look like a Ford?

Note: Fords are fine, just not as fine as a Ferrari.

Also, I don't really have a Ferrari.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Of all the ways that one can void their video card's warranty, this one is easily the best!

 

[Avro Arrow]

Do they sell a kit to make my Ferrari look like a Ford?

Note: Fords are fine, just not as fine as a Ferrari.

Also, I don't really have a Ferrari.

Someone once told me to "Get high and die!" so I bought a Veloster!

 

[Co BIY]

I could see a AIB builder (especially a second tier) cross marketing with a Cooler Master cooler from the assembly line.

 

[artk2219]

I could see a AIB builder (especially a second tier) cross marketing with a Cooler Master cooler from the assembly line.

That was my first thought if it performed well enough, that they may sell these as whitelabel for other manufacturers.

 

[UnforcedERROR]

Coolers on GPUs have gotten better, so there's been less reason to replace them. I remember when people would replace the conventional cooling solutions with aftermarket fans or heat pipes. Zalman made a number of these, and I installed at least one other brand on an AMD 5850. Even recently I recall NZXT putting out an AIO liquid cooler solution.

Not terribly unique or interesting, but I suppose there's a market for it.

 

[thestryker]

It shouldn't be all that hard for them to support multiple board designs since it's basically just a shroud. They'd have to make sure there were appropriate screw openings and nothing overlapped but that's about it.

That being said I'm not sure there's much of a market for this outside of OEMs who make their own cards. Having a mostly ready-made high quality fan/shroud setup that you could use across your entire line might be enticing.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I could see a AIB builder (especially a second tier) cross marketing with a Cooler Master cooler from the assembly line.

Cooler Master already makes GPU coolers for some companies. I remember seeing an episode of Gamers Nexus where Steve went to Cooler Master and several GeForce model shrouds could be seen with various brands on them. I think that they also make the coolers for the reference GeForce cards.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Coolers on GPUs have gotten better, so there's been less reason to replace them. I remember when people would replace the conventional cooling solutions with aftermarket fans or heat pipes. Zalman made a number of these, and I installed at least one other brand on an AMD 5850. Even recently I recall NZXT putting out an AIO liquid cooler solution.

Not terribly unique or interesting, but I suppose there's a market for it.

I have a Dell HD 5870 reference design with the jet engine blower cooler. Lotsa fun!

 

[edzieba]

A return of aftermarket GPU air coolers? What next, the zombie corpse of the Arctic Accelero rises from its grave?!

 

[UnforcedERROR]

I have a Dell HD 5870 reference design with the jet engine blower cooler. Lotsa fun!

I remember being disappointed by the 5850 at the time. It may have been a previous card I had the cooler on, honestly my GPUS and CPUS in the 2000s are a little hazy for whatever reason. That blower though, looked so much cooler than it sounded!

 

[8086]

With this product in their portfolio, I would love to see a complete GPU as Coolermaster's next move to fill in the void left behind by EVGA.

 

[umeng2002_2]

Aftermarket GPU coolers... ah... the good old days.

 

[FoxtrotMichael-1]

Aftermarket GPU coolers... ah... the good old days.

I’m glad someone else is old enough to remember when aftermarket GPU air coolers were the norm for gaming builds. Stock coolers were terrible back in the day!

 

[clinnenb]

I found replacing my OC'd RTX3080 shroud & fans with 2 CoolMaster case fans lowered card temperatures, lowered case temperatures, and lowered audible noise. Granted, I had a very space constrained ITX build where these fans were case mounted just millimeters from the card's heatsink, but I personally found the factory triple fans insufficient & inferior.

 

[UnforcedERROR]

I’m glad someone else is old enough to remember when aftermarket GPU air coolers were the norm for gaming builds. Stock coolers were terrible back in the day!

You're not alone. I remember the good old passive Zalman heatpipes and seeing people at LAN showing them off.

It's weird that this whole thread jogged my memory on my card history. Had an Arctic Cooler on an ATI x850 at one point. That was probably the last time I did anything aftermarket though, outside of replacing some squeaky fans on my 1070.

 

[CelicaGT]

I’m glad someone else is old enough to remember when aftermarket GPU air coolers were the norm for gaming builds. Stock coolers were terrible back in the day!

You can still find old/new stock at Newegg for these things. I -almost- exchanged the FE blower cooler for my 1080 for one, but the reviews were less than flattering so I never bothered.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I remember being disappointed by the 5850 at the time. It may have been a previous card I had the cooler on, honestly my GPUS and CPUS in the 2000s are a little hazy for whatever reason. That blower though, looked so much cooler than it sounded!

Yeah, it's true. They sure did look good! I never really cared about how loud they got because, at the time, I used a gaming headset so that nobody complained about the noise of the game. It did a perfect job of drowning out the sound of the blower. Now, I didn't use the 5870 at the time, I actually traded an old HD 7970 (Since I had two of them anyway) for it because it was in perfect (and unused) condition a few years ago.

I did however have a blower-cooled HD 4870 and I doubt that it was any quieter.

 

[UnforcedERROR]

Yeah, it's true. They sure did look good! I never really cared about how loud they got because, at the time, I used a gaming headset so that nobody complained about the noise of the game. It did a perfect job of drowning out the sound of the blower. Now, I didn't use the 5870 at the time, I actually traded an old HD 7970 (Since I had two of them anyway) for it because it was in perfect (and unused) condition a few years ago.

I did however have a blower-cooled HD 4870 and I doubt that it was any quieter.

I gamed a ton mostly with headphones on, so the noise was only bad on the rare times I was using speakers. I eventually replaced that 5850 with a used 6870. Performance was fine but it had a hard coded undervolt that would BSoD when watching YouTube or video while being completely fine in-game. I'm sure it's why the owner sold it. I couldn't force the GPU BIOS to alter the voltage (and boy did I try), but ATI Tool fixed the problem through software. Only issue with that was it made Steam overlay stop working, so I'd miss messages from friends.

Funny enough I had a similar issue with an NVidia 5900XT, where I had to edit the BIOS file with 3.5 floppy disks. Last NVidia card I had until a 680 almost a decade later.

None of this had to do with replacing GPU fans, of course.

 

[TechLurker]

If these would allow strapping in of any 120mm fan, and not just CM's Mobius fans sized down to fit card width limits, then it could be a good alternate option for strapping in Noctuas or T30s or Grand Tornadoes.

Moreso if they engineer a good universal GPU cooler finstack that accepts 120s and adds the shroud both for some performance and aesthetic reasons.

 

[umeng2002_2]

Over the years, GPU have gone "up market," and I'm not just referring to the price. For a long time, they looked like glorified sound cards with a five dollar fan slapped on with push pins.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I gamed a ton mostly with headphones on, so the noise was only bad on the rare times I was using speakers. I eventually replaced that 5850 with a used 6870. Performance was fine but it had a hard coded undervolt that would BSoD when watching YouTube or video while being completely fine in-game. I'm sure it's why the owner sold it. I couldn't force the GPU BIOS to alter the voltage (and boy did I try), but ATI Tool fixed the problem through software. Only issue with that was it made Steam overlay stop working, so I'd miss messages from friends.

Funny enough I had a similar issue with an NVidia 5900XT, where I had to edit the BIOS file with 3.5 floppy disks. Last NVidia card I had until a 680 almost a decade later.

None of this had to do with replacing GPU fans, of course.

Wow, that's really strange. I never had an HD 6000 card but my asked me to help him select parts and build a gaming PC back then. He got a Phenom II X4 950 and a Gigabyte HD 6850 (the best deal on a card at the time). I wonder why it would be hard-undervolted because undervolting silicon always creates instability, the trick is to not undervolt it enough that it becomes unstable enough that it has problems. It would seem that whichever AIB made your HD 6870 didn't get that particular memo.

 

[UnforcedERROR]

Wow, that's really strange. I never had an HD 6000 card but my asked me to help him select parts and build a gaming PC back then. He got a Phenom II X4 950 and a Gigabyte HD 6850 (the best deal on a card at the time). I wonder why it would be hard-undervolted because undervolting silicon always creates instability, the trick is to not undervolt it enough that it becomes unstable enough that it has problems. It would seem that whichever AIB made your HD 6870 didn't get that particular memo.

It was specifically that card, by that brand, unfortunately (don't remember who made it though). It's actually how I figured out the problem in the first place. I began digging through the specs of other manufacturers and found mine had a 0.2 voltage decrease in the BIOS. It was common at the time to adjust the voltage/clocks of 6870s by altering parameters in their BIOS file, even swapping between different vendor versions, but this particular card was an outlier (no matter what you changed it defaulted to that 0.2 dip). Once I realized a BIOS hack wouldn't fix the problem I looked into software solutions. If I recall ATI Tool didn't even support the card because it hadn't been updated in years (I mean it was still called ATI Tool...), but it was the only thing that let me boost the voltage to the proper specs. To this day I don't know how the card went to market in that state, or why a vendor would intentionally change the voltage out of spec. What was even more bizarre is it seemed no one at the time identified the problem, just that the specific card would routinely crash during non-intensive use.