Open air Vs blower GPU

[idefvx]

Hello community!

Look, now I'm sure most of you have read through something like this before, and I apologize. But I was still wondering (since I couldn't find it anywhere else), what would be better in a high airflow case? And by high airflow I mean 2x140mm fans in the front of the case for intake with mesh infront of it, 1x120mm fan in the back as exhaust, and nothing in the top of the case (space for 2x140mm or 120mm fans). Now, with all that said, I am deciding on a 1070 ti (or 1080 if they're cheap enough by the end of this year) eather the founders edition by NVIDIA or the titanium GPU by MSI. I ask for help here, if you have a similar build with one of these GPUs I would be interested in thermals.
Thanks a lot!

-Ryan

 

[rhoban]

Custom cards.
Blower GPUs are generally hotter and offer slightly lower performance than custom cards.

 

[Karadjgne]

Optimal airflow for any mid tower is 2x fans intake front, 2x fans exhaust top. For towers using air cooler towers, that'd be 1x rear, 1x top rear.

Blower style by design dump heat outside, so really don't affect case temps much at all, either in small cases or good airflow cases.
Axial style dump their heat into the case, which will raise case temps, the degree to which is determined by airflow, not necessarily CFM.

Blowers are limited in heatsink ability and have smaller fans and those fans run high rpm to move more air through the heatsink at higher pressure, consequently being far louder than Axial which run larger fans having a broader area of contact, so much slower rpm and a lot less noise.

Because of heat issues, especially where it concerns the vram/VRM's which are on the far end of the heatsink near the rear of the case, furthest away from cooler fan, blower gpus (FE) are most often not overclocked, using original design (reference) clock/memory speeds and voltages.

Typically, blowers have 2x advantages, both heat related, that being sli/cf compatability for size and temps, and smaller, low airflow cases.

Typically axial have 3x advantages, lower temps, higher performance, lower volume.

Personally, I'd take a hi-po axial 1070ti over a blower 1080, there's not that much, if any, difference in ability/performance which pretty much negates the necessity of using noise canceling earphones just to listen to anything clearly.

 

[ThomasKK]

Blower type GPU cooler: stock performance, keeps heat out of the PC case.

Open air custom GPUs: up to 10-15% better performance when compared to blower type cooler (for example a founder's edition gtx1080 vs any other open air dual-fan gtx1080). Lower temps, better overclocking, but leaves the heat inside of the case.

Unless a blower type GPU has a really good price, go for open air cooler type for sure if you have a good air-flow.

 

[R0GG]

Blower Fan GPUs have improved dramatically (own an EVGA 1080ti gaming and the quality of the blower fan is outstanding) especially EVGA and even Nvidia founder editions as the fan quality and bearings and the heatsink configuration and construction overall quality allowed the blower Fan GPU to decrease the gap between them and the open air FAN GPU in term of noise-to-cooling ratio performance, open air GPUs remain more response to overclocking ( depending on other factors) and can achieve slightly higher overclocking clocks and performance (up to 10%) (as you know higher overclocked clocks does not mean automatically higher performance !)
So depending on the use : - system aimed for over clocking = open air fan GPU = granted good case air flow.
- SLi and CrossFire: Blower fan are preferred because of the amount of heat generated by the cards
- Regular system use : either one would do, but most people go for the open air concept GPUs
- Small Form Factor and compact PC case = Blower fan GPU (exhausts air outside of the case, avoiding heat contamination of other components) especially with the newer SFX cases and how the video card is mounted with direct access to fresh outside air intake for GPU blower fan

 

[Karadjgne]

My biggest issue with blowers is cleaning. The heatsink vanes on a blower are sideways, travel the length of the card, vrs axial which travel the width of the card. This means to get air actually flowing between the vanes, channeled to run the full length, there's minimal gappage between the vanes, shroud and fan. It's right at the entrance between the fan and vanes where most issues occur. Once dirt/debris starts piling up there (and it will no matter how good the intake screens are) you loose a lot of flow down the heatsink. The blower gpus require a goodly amount more maintenance in cleaning, best way is removal of the shroud, but can be done with compressed air/straw from the rear.

With axial style, this is less problematic as dirt/debris doesn't accumulate at the same rate, it's blown off by the fans and there's a lot more room between the blades for cleaning.