Discussion Why don't reference boards do this?

[digitalgriffin]

I was thinking about reference boards and how the GPU is the biggest producer of heat in your system (when under load)

This often results in very heavy and thick custom made heat sinks with multiple fans. The GPU final game clock can depend heavily upon how well this heatsink works.

So I was wondering, why don't they standardize the mounting socket mount area among all AIB's so that we can have a competitive market for water cooling on graphics cards? It would make swapping out air sinks to AIOs so much easier. We have a standardized socket area for CPU's, a standardized socket for GPU's only makes sense.

Giving the user the option of a post AIO kit for the card would be a huge selling point. Instead we have custom one off's which are small batch and expensive. Adding open loop water cooling can cost as much as the card.

 

[Math Geek]

a generic reference cooler would work across the board for any card that uses the reference design. there is no requirement that a company use that design though. so we of course get multiple boards each with multiple cooling options from each company. requiring every card from every company be standardized, defeats the purpose of "custom" boards. it would take all reasons away to make different boards for different segments. different lengths, vrm set-ups and other features between the boards would be tough to include if they all had to fit a specific cooling solution. it's not just the mounting of it, but also where the vrm's are and other stuff that needs contact with the heatsink that you need to consider. force it all to be the same size and in the same place for every card means no more custom anything as it would not fit in the same places, with the same sizes, clearance and so on.

 

[Phaaze88]

It doesn't help that some people want tempered glass and rainbow vomit everywhere.
Guess which component gets hit the hardest from this crap...

IMO, the whole point of the custom designed models is that the user ISN'T going to liquid cool it later.
If one is going to run a triple fan, 2.5 or 3slot cooler, with power limits 50-100w higher than the reference, then they better have some bloody good chassis cooling.
Slapping cards like an Aorus Extreme, Gaming X Trio, or FTW3 Ultra, etc., into something like a Masterbox Lite or NZXT H500... it's bloody stupid, and they deserve the results they get from doing so.