First Preview of Gigabyte's Radeon HD 7970 With 5 Fans

[Marcus Yam]

Look what we've got sitting in our lab!

First Preview of Gigabyte's Radeon HD 7970 With 5 Fans : Read more

 

[halcyon]

I'm eager to read more THG news and info on this...especially since its actually not supposed to be too much of a noise-maker.

 

[Xenturion]

Something tells me the acoustic characteristics of those 40mm fans will leave much to be desired. But, I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

 

[halcyon]

[citation][nom]Xenturion[/nom]Something tells me the acoustic characteristics of those 40mm fans will leave much to be desired. But, I suppose we'll have to wait and see.[/citation]
That's what I'd think but perhaps the fans are using fluid-dynamic bearings and noise-reduction blade geometry (or some other smoke and mirrors gimic). Who knows.

 

[dj1001]

5 x 40mm fans = 200mm of fanage

would have been better of doing what everybody else does and use 2 120mm

 

[doron]

Where's the fifth fan?

 

[vmem]

I guess results will determine whether the engineer who got this "brilliant idea" will be promoted or fired lol. who knows, it just may be a breakthrough in GPU cooling. we all know large CPU coolers use this same concept and are generally better than the top down style stock coolers. so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and eagerly await what test results show us

 

[nukemaster]

[citation][nom]doron[/nom]Where's the fifth fan?[/citation]
Over the PCI-e power connectors. You can not see it in this picture.

The biggest advantage this may get will be that fact that ALL that space can be a heatsink without some removed for the fans.

 

[doron]

[citation][nom]nukemaster[/nom]Over the PCI-e power connectors. You can not see it in this picture.The biggest advantage this may get will be that fact that ALL that space can be a heatsink without some removed for the fans.[/citation]

This. And Gigabyte's claim for better cooling efficiency actually makes a lot sense, especially with a side-mounted exhaust fan. We'll see though.

 

[nukemaster]

5 x 40mm fans = 200mm of fanage

would have been better of doing what everybody else does and use 2 120mm

Are you sure?

40mm fan opening or area

3.14 x 20^2 (pr r^2)

1 x 40mm fan has a opening area of 1256 square mm

1256 x 5 = 6280 square mm

120mm fan area

3.14 x 60^2

1 x 120mm fan is 11304 square mm

This setup is closer to an 80mm fan then anything.

All this does not count the fact that with a 40mm fan the motor is much bigger compared to the blades. So both are actually less then the above numbers. Also, how thick is each fan?

More accurate would be with blade surface area.

 

[warezme]

testing, posts not working, 1,2,3

 

[warezme]

great, now they work..., what I was thinking, is those look exactly like high RPM 1U server fans. They are fairly quiet at normal operation but crank those puppies up and hold on because they are going to sound like a tiny 747 on take off.

 

[ElMoIsEviL]

Everyone keeps talking about the fans but everyone ignores the surface area afforded to the cooler by it's multitude of heatpipes and the enormous size of the heatsink.

If the fans are enough (don't need more than *enough*) to keep the heat load in check those heatpipes and that heatsink should be enough to keep that monster cool upwards of 400W of heat.

 

[ko888]

There's also a back-plate on the back of the card. The copper vapor chamber for the massive cooler is screwed to the back-plate to keep the card from flexing.

 

[Marcus52]

Yah the placement of the fans (long and narrow) makes sense, since the cooler is, uh, long and narrow. The bigger fans are put through a bit of a contortion, when you think about the air flow. That does not make for efficiency in cooling or a quiet setup.

Nothing is mentioned about the CFM rate or each fan.

Glad some of you are such good engineers you can look at the rig and say "should have used 2 120mm fans". I'm impressed! Not.

 

[A Bad Day]

I look forward to the day when they use solid state, non-mechanical, electro-aerodynamic fans.

 

[stingstang]

Silent under 30c? So...silent when the card is off.

 

[amuffin]

Protect your PCIE slots, protect them!!

 

[ko888]

[citation][nom]stingstang[/nom]Silent under 30c? So...silent when the card is off.[/citation]There's a zero RPM mode for under 30°C. For every 10°C incremental rise starting from 30°C and higher the fans will ramp up to the next speed step in its pre-programmed fan speeds.

 

[sicom]

Looks really cool, but can it blend?

 

[verbalizer]

it's still a Gigabyte and Gigabyte GPU's are the most buggiest of all the major manufactures.
looks cool, not sure about the effectiveness vs MSi Twin Frozr III design,
I think Tom's needs to have a shootout.

 

[buzznut]

I still think it'll sound like a clogged hoover.

 

[killerclick]

Every stock cooler is too f%$#ing loud. Why can't they just buy Arctic Cooling coolers and install them on their cards before selling them?

 

[teodoreh]

Those small fans will break the noise records for sure. The smaller the fan the biggest the noise is. Also I laughed when I saw the DualBios reference. I once lost a GB dual-bios board after a... bad flash. And those broken capacitors, are also record breaking on old GB boards (alongside ECS). So to conclude, I don't trust Gigabyte, specially after the not-so-true PCIe 3.0 which shows that history repeats itself!

 

[buzznut]

[citation][nom]doron[/nom]Where's the fifth fan?[/citation]

It is located at the end of the card perpendicular to the other fans, leaving me even more skeptical. But perhaps their claims are justified, I guess I just think it looks ugly so therefore it won't work as advertized.