This is Gigabyte's Super Overclock GTX 680 With 5 Fans

[razor512]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]Perhaps, but it still doesn't exhaust the hot air out of the case, does it? Noise-dampening foam would make the heat issue worse.[/citation]

it doesn't seem to pull hot air out of the case, but sound foam doesn't really increase the case temperature if you have very good airflow where the air is being replaced quickly enough for the heat transfer of the case material to not be a factor.

even many lower cost cases such as the antec 300 can achieve this if you fill all of the fan slots.

For a quiet build, you cover all panels that boarder the outside of the case with sound foam (sound foam can be reused on multiple cases though the glue that is left behind is very hard to get off)

after that, replace all fan screws, with rubber mounts

after doing that, you will notice that the computer will be significantly quieter

I have done a few quiet builds, and you can make most gaming PC's quiet enough to be used in a home theater environment, The loudest part that you don't have as much control over, are external exhaust videocard coolers (at full speed, the sound foam has almost no effect)


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not really related

Wanted to add, if you do an SLI setup and the GPU temperature for one of the cards skyrockets, if you don't mind the ugly look and you have a side panel fan that slows in between the 2 cards, then you can get some cardboard and make some cardboard barn doors for the fan to focus the air in between the cards, in most cases, this will make the temperatures almost normal (though it will increase noise slightly for the side panel fan)

 

[coolgamer512]

They need to stop it. Now.

 

[upgrade_1977]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]Quite a few people would disagree with you. Considering that the current $2K SBM build has a three slot GTX 680, I'd say that Tom's disagrees with this too.[/citation] And yet, this many post's later and only one thumbs down.... (gee, i wonder who gave me it? LOL)

I'm sorry, I should have rephrased that from the beginning. Why put a 3 slot cooler on a graphics card and loose other important upgrade options, when there are plenty of 2 slot coolers that would work just fine on this card?

 

[hellfire24]

GTX 680 and waterblock, probably cheaper than this!

no way,because you need a lot more than a waterblock to run a watercooled gtx 680.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]upgrade_1977[/nom]And yet, this many post's later and only one thumbs down.... (gee, i wonder who gave me it? LOL)I'm sorry, I should have rephrased that from the beginning. Why put a 3 slot cooler on a graphics card and loose other important upgrade options, when there are plenty of 2 slot coolers that would work just fine on this card?[/citation]

That would completely defy the point of this card. It is to make SLI systems not have one of the cards chokes for air by another card that is too close. This could probably not have been achieved by a 2 slot cooler and Gigabyte already has a 2 slot GTX 680, so why not make something more special? This card would probably have been better with, like I said, a fan in the back and in the front of the card so that an intake fan can bring the air in to the five fans and the other two fans can direct it out of the case, but let's not pretend that there isn't a purpose for this design.

Besides, a 3 slot cooler can cool better, possibly meaning better overclocks and cooler/quieter running, although that might not be true with this one. However, it has a different purpose.

 

[xxplosiv88]

I don't get what was wrong with the three large fans on the usual Windforce cooler. Remember how loud just ONE of these stupid little fans was on, say, an old Pentium CPU back in the day? Or a Radeon 9800 Pro?

Ah, they must be taking Microsofts logic a la Windows 8: If it ain't broke, fix it.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]xxplosiv88[/nom]I don't get what was wrong with the three large fans on the usual Windforce cooler. Remember how loud just ONE of these stupid little fans was on, say, an old Pentium CPU back in the day? Or a Radeon 9800 Pro?Ah, they must be taking Microsofts logic a la Windows 8: If it ain't broke, fix it.[/citation]

More fans can move at a lower speed while still providing more air flow and fans have improved since those days too. Furthermore, Windows 8 is better than Windows 7 in every way except for Metro (and even that's debatable) and MS's logic wasn't if it ain't broke, fix it. MS's logic was this: Lets get an app store where all software sold gives us a cut of the profit so we can make a lot of money by doing only a little more work. Metro will help MS accomplish this goal, although I still don't like it.

Even more important, what Gigabyte seems to be trying to do is fix something that is broken and that's how SLI can choke one or more cards for air. Even if you had a 12 slot wide system and had four of these plugged in to a massive motherboard, they would still not have any worse air problems than a single one of these would have so long as you had good intake/exhaust and otherwise good airflow in the case.

 

[R6ex]

10 fans push-pull for decent air-flow?

 

[cobra5000]

U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi, you UGLY!

 

[Dugimodo]

[citation][nom]Travis Beane[/nom]My speakers don't hit 100 decibals.I'll let you know a secret: 23db is 2x as loud as 20dba, and 30dba is 10x as loud as 20dba. 5x20dba is somewhere around 27 dba. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.[/citation]
Yeah that's right, and it's no secret 3dB = twice the power so 2x20dB fans = 23dB, 4x20dB fans = 26db and so on.

 

[eddieroolz]

Thats nice and all that, but wheres my reference GTX 680, it has been a month and half.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]eddieroolz[/nom]Thats nice and all that, but wheres my reference GTX 680, it has been a month and half.[/citation]

The best way to get a 680 is to cancel any current orders for one and get on the notification lists for newegg and other such sites. Make sure that you have a way of knowing when you get emails (such as having a phone that notifies you of emails). You'll probably get a GTX 670 or GTX 680 much faster this way rather then waiting for an order or waiting for them to be in stock long enough for you to get to them without a method such as the method that I described here.

 

[rantoc]

Soo 5 mechanical higher rpm parts that can break down compared to a few bigger low rpm ones, seems to be the right thing in the end /end sarcasm

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]rantoc[/nom]Soo 5 mechanical higher rpm parts that can break down compared to a few bigger low rpm ones, seems to be the right thing in the end /end sarcasm[/citation]

This has already been explained. These fans are here to suit a different purpose than the larger fans are. They do a somewhat different job by letting cards that are very close together for SLI not be more choked for air than cards that have one or two empty slots between them. Basically, this would help triple and quad SLI systems so long as the case has proper air flow.

 

[larkspur]

A bit late to the party, but I think I see what the confusion is here. First, there is that horrendous looking system they have that single card plugged into. Cables going this way and that - horrible looking display system. As distracting as that is, the real problem is that they don't have two or three of them in SLI butting right up against each other while still nice-n-cool like they are designed to be implemented.

If you missed that, this card is clearly designed for people who want the highest-quality air cooling they can get on a cherry-picked GPU who will OC it more and use it in SLI. Three-slot cooling designs have the potential to be superior to two-slot air cooling designs, that should be obvious. And the problem with three-slotters in SLI is also obvious. This card seeks to solve that problem and who knows, maybe it does. I too would like to know just how loud she gets : )

 

[vsams14]

Companies need to start realizing, there is this thing called Liquid Cooling, and it tends to work...

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]vsams14[/nom]Companies need to start realizing, there is this thing called Liquid Cooling, and it tends to work...[/citation]

It's also much more expensive.

 

[photonboy]

[citation][nom]DRosencraft[/nom]Yeah, interesting idea, but the noise level will likely be a problem. Love Gigabyte, but I think this might not be their best idea. Let's do a little conceptualizing. Let's say that they manage to get each fan here to run at max RPM but only ~20dba. That's an effective total of ~100dba. Compare that to three 120mm or 140mm fans that will push the same amount of air if not more while running at the same 20dba, for an effective ~60dba. My guess is that this design is all about the performance of placing those fans on the side of the card rather than how many fans there are. The card would probably look weird if they limited to only three or so fans on the side, so they went for a little better aesthetics, sacrificed a little on noise, and hope that not too many people have need to crank this thing up too much.[/citation]

I get your point. I have an Asus DirectCU II GTX 680 and it is about the same volume as this with two larger fans. That to me makes far more sense.

FYI, you don't ADD on the decibel scale like that. It's logarithmic.

 

[cryptz]

you think they would go with a closed loop water cooler for the video card as a solution for this problem. Obviously just a waterblock would be better but i know some people are scared to water cool, but a closed loop system seems like it would make more sense then adding this many fans. Plus given the size of this thing they probably could have put the closed loop system completely on the card minus the rad.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]cryptz[/nom]you think they would go with a closed loop water cooler for the video card as a solution for this problem. Obviously just a waterblock would be better but i know some people are scared to water cool, but a closed loop system seems like it would make more sense then adding this many fans. Plus given the size of this thing they probably could have put the closed loop system completely on the card minus the rad.[/citation]

Again, cost is a factor. This is probably much cheaper than using a water cooling system. It also doesn't need a radiator. It might be best if we hold off severe criticisms until a good review is read because we won't really know how well it works without actually checking.

 

[loops]

So its a 5 fan pull set up. I don't think that is a bad idea.

 

[ryfry]

[citation][nom]TheBigTroll[/nom]hey! fractal made 40mm fans that spin at 4000rpm and they only make 19dba of noise at that speed. small fans dont make that much noise nowadays[/citation]
but what was the cfm?..

 

[Sirsweed]

Can you SLI this, because I want more fans.

 

[TheBigTroll]

but what was the cfm?..

4 :lol:

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]Sirsweed[/nom]Can you SLI this, because I want more fans.[/citation]

It's specifically designed for SLI.