Cooling/venting video card

rchapman

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Dec 31, 2010
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Are the enclosed type cooling on video cards effective? My card just has an open fan and I want to cool it better. My job provides me with resources to be able to make an enclosed type cooling like you see on some cards or a vent thru the side of the case so itll pull outside case air only. My card isnt overheating but Im a believer in the cooler the better regardless.
 
Open coolers on gpus tend to keep cooler then exhaust type coolers.
 
By open cooler you are referring to me making a vent thru the case directly to the gpu fan?



 
Ok. My card has an open cooler now. Not one of that size though, just the standard size that comes on one. I installed a vent for my cpu that consists of a tube the size of the fan connected to to fan and extends thru the case to pull ait from outside the case. My cpu idles at 31c and gets to around 42c under a load. My gpu idles at 43c. I dont know what the load temp is. Whats a good temp fot gpu



 



depends on what card it is what do you have
 
idles at 43 thats ok at load under 100c is good lol prolly run at 70c which is ok amd runs hotter usally.
 
Im actually an nvidia petson but i wanted to upgrade this pc and couldnt find a 1gb agp nvidia card..o.ly a 512mb. It made a big difference with the game i play..nr2003. I also upped my ram from 512mb to 1gb dual channel. Its an asus a7n8x deluxe


 



when are you planning to upgrade the whole computer?
 
Im actually an nvidia petson but i wanted to upgrade this pc and couldnt find a 1gb agp nvidia card..o.ly a 512mb. It made a big difference with the game i play..nr2003. I also upped my ram from 512mb to 1gb dual channel. Its an asus a7n8x deluxe

As I can recall through experience thats a very low amount of memory for any computer, let alone one you want to play a game on. I'm sure if you got 2 - 4 gigs more of memory you would see a massive increase. You can get that much memory for very cheap, I believe.

Also, one downside to a card that is cooled openly is that it dumps all the heat it produces right into the case, probably into the cpu that is right above it (unless you have great airflow of course)
 
My mobo only supports 3gb max, which im would still show a performance increase over 1gb..correct?



 


I disagree...

I had an open cooler type graphics card, and I replaced the cooler with a direct exhaust type cooler.
Not only did my gpu temps go down, but my cpu temps went down also.
The reason is that the open coolers do a good job of getting heat off of the gpu die. This shows up well in open test beds. The problem is that in a case, the hot vga air gets dumped back into the case where case cooling has to deal with it. That hotter air is what the cpu cooler also gets, which hurts cpu cooling.





 
Your case didnt have sufficent cooling then, in that case it would just fill up the case with hot air. otherwise reviews prove open coolers keep the card cooler.
 


My case at that time had ok cooling, not great, but not bad. I was really trying to tame a hot P4 at the time.

Most reviewers of cpu coolers do it on open test beds, not in a case. It is just easier for them and more consistent. But most of us use cases.
 



well in a thermaltake element v case which has great cooling

exhaust gtx 460-idle 40c load 70c
open gtx 460-idle 35c load 60-65c
 

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