purpose of fans

[Tony driftking]

What is the main purpose of having fans on graphics card ? Are they work as intake or exhausts?

 

[smorizio]

there there to push hot air off the cooler of gpu and cpu. think of an electric rad in your home. most are set up to blow hot air away from the gpu/cooler. (heat wants to rise normaly).

 

[Moonstick2]

From the card's point of view they work as intake, as they're taking the air from within the PC case and blowing it across the heatsink attached to the card.

These days it's also more common for cards to have shrouds, so that the after blowing across the heatsink the air is guided/pushed out of the back of the end of the card (the vented part that normally takes up a second PCI bracket). In that case, from the PC case point of view, they're exhaust.

 

[Tony driftking]

That means they works as an exhausts to take the heat out from graphics card. am i right?

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

It really depends on the design of the heat sink and fan combination on the graphics card. Some are intake, some are exhaust. Some perform both roles, such as the centrifugal fans often seen in the reference graphics cards.

The fans are there to move air. Is there more of a reason you would like to know whether the fans are intake or exhaust?