Gigabyte cooling performance *REP POST*

[frankel1414]

....

We would like to remind our customers in the UK that we have 3 years warranty and that we have a local RMA center located in Milton Keyes.

Gigabyte would be near top of my list for a new GFX card but forcing your customers to pay return postage on their RMA kind of puts me off.

Anyway, back on topic. Are the horror stories about the RX480 G1 Gaming temps also false?

 

[Drollic]

At least Gigabyte actively cool the VRM circuitry. EVGA's 10 series are now tainted because they lack the thermal pads as standard.

Their resale value will also be affected - people will be worried that it will overheat and if the thermal pad 'mod' has been done, then you run the risk of the original owner damaging the card in some way, invalidating the warranty.

Though I completely understand EVGA owners are going to be rather desperate to trivialise and play down this issue - it's only human nature after spending extra money on a 'premium' brand.

Heck, even the founders edition cards have thermal pads to properly cool the VRM's etc! :

NVIDIA really were serious when they said the founders edition cards used premium components

I don't understand the playing it down either, it's pretty shoddy of them to overlook it. Personally I'm hoping mine goes when they are unavailable so I end up with a 1170 much later down the line. There's no place for this kind of advertising though. 'look everyone, we use thermal pads' - that's great, but your coolers are average, the cards don't look premium, they don't match most build colors and the warranty and rma process is also average.

 

[Kelt]

It's called damage control/limitation.

I worked for a company a few years back that had a chemicals.divison. One of their products, a pressurized air can, exploded, causing some injury to a person.

Whole company went into damage limitation mode, we were instructed not to talk about the issue to anybody under pain of dismissal etc.

Guess it might be like this at EVGA right now.

 

[efish]

It's a balancing act. Say anything its going to be turned into some huge human drama. Say nothing its going to be turned into some huge human drama just with less evidence and more heat and of course youre rivals are going to be only to keen to jump in and fan the flames.

I think the balance with evega has been tipped a bit to heavily towards damage control and less thought went into providing clear, basic information, straight out of the gate.

Taken me more time than necessary to work out I need the pads.

Hopefully they will be able to balance things better in future.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

I don't understand the playing it down either, it's pretty shoddy of them to overlook it. Personally I'm hoping mine goes when they are unavailable so I end up with a 1170 much later down the line. There's no place for this kind of advertising though. 'look everyone, we use thermal pads' - that's great, but your coolers are average, the cards don't look premium, they don't match most build colors and the warranty and rma process is also average.

Think its mainly to reassure gigabyte customers about their cards, might have a secondary objective but done its job.

Having to place uprated thermal pads to 4 Strix 1080s and visit a client with a 1070 to change and add pads just because they've heard new and nobword from Asus

 

[Twirlywoos]

Great job, having a dig at EVGA's expense. If only EVGA did the same with the coil whine your 980ti's had.

 

[Gigabyte-Gaming]

Jumping on EVGA and their recent mistake in this manner is fairly lame. The build quality of my gigabyte 780 was less than impressive. Another company to avoid for components

Oh, and orange as a color theme when motherboards, RAM and just about every other PC part is barely ever available in orange - brilliant.

This is far from being a jab at EVGA, we've had problems communicating the reasons for our design choices through media due to all the reasons we explained in the original post. That's the intention of it.
You are comparing the build quality of a 2+ year old 780 with current cards, I don't think we need to deep digger into this topic.

If you are decided on another brand and don't want to touch ours it's fine, it's 100% your choice. Even more so if it has to do with colors.

 

[Nelly]

Just checked Asus, Gigabyte, EVGA and MSI comparisons for VRM of the 1070's and the Gigabyte runs the coldest out of all of them.

In order of best cooling overall, including the VRMs.

1. Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 G1 GAMING >> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_1070_g1_gaming_review,10.html

2. ASUS GeForce GTX 1070 STRIX Gaming >> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_geforce_gtx_1070_strix_gaming_review,10.html

3. MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming Z >> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_1070_gaming_z_review,9.html

4. EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC Gaming >> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/evga_geforce_gtx_1070_sc_superclocked_gaming_review,10.html

 

[Maxed Out]

I ended up buying the G1 Gaming 1070, so glad to hear a different take on things. I had to wait a while to get funds together and the Gigabyte was not first choice. Was going to go Palit-MSI-Zotac. Palit had supply issues and some artifacts/reliability issues. MSI came out of the blocks strong with great reviews, but they hiked the price up. Zotac too were well regarded, but again, price hike. The Gigabyte G1 has been well reviewed,barr a minus point for slightly raised fan noise. + points for me are UK rma and as long as I'm careful, the warranty won't be void if I open it up and fit a full EK water cooled block. It kills the fan noise and keeps things even cooler.
I am not a brand fanatic. Next week I am buying an EVGA PSU.

 

[Meaker]

At least Gigabyte actively cool the VRM circuitry. EVGA's 10 series are now tainted because they lack the thermal pads as standard.

Their resale value will also be affected - people will be worried that it will overheat and if the thermal pad 'mod' has been done, then you run the risk of the original owner damaging the card in some way, invalidating the warranty.

Though I completely understand EVGA owners are going to be rather desperate to trivialise and play down this issue - it's only human nature after spending extra money on a 'premium' brand.

Heck, even the founders edition cards have thermal pads to properly cool the VRM's etc! :

NVIDIA really were serious when they said the founders edition cards used premium components

So premium half of them are not populated increasing the load on those that remain. My notebook has a far stronger VRM on each card.

 

[Dave2150]

So premium half of them are not populated increasing the load on those that remain. My notebook has a far stronger VRM on each card.

Lets see how those VRM's you describe as 'overloaded' on the Founders Edition cards fair under load, shall we?





Also please educate yourself on the overclocks the FE cards are capable of. In the vast majority of cases they reach the same overclocks as the custom cards, despite only having a 5 phase VRM design.

Obviously the custom cards are capable of far lower temperatures and noise levels, though it's silly to make up nonsense that the FE cards have inadequate VRM circuitry.

 

[Gigabyte-Gaming]

Just checked Asus, Gigabyte, EVGA and MSI comparisons for VRM of the 1070's and the Gigabyte runs the coldest out of all of them.

In order of best cooling overall, including the VRMs.

1. Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 G1 GAMING >> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_1070_g1_gaming_review,10.html

2. ASUS GeForce GTX 1070 STRIX Gaming >> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_geforce_gtx_1070_strix_gaming_review,10.html

3. MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming Z >> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_1070_gaming_z_review,9.html

4. EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 SC Gaming >> http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/evga_geforce_gtx_1070_sc_superclocked_gaming_review,10.html

Thanks for the summary. That's pretty much what I meant to convey.

 

[aatu]

I know the discussion is more towards the higher end, but I'd like to ask for opinions on RX 460 custom cooling.

Long story short:
The dual stock cooler on the Gigabyte RX 460 4GB is quite silent on idle at 0-800rpm, but with gaming load it usually rises above 1200rpm. On normal systems this should still be quite ok, but when the rest of the system is practically inaudible, it IS noticeable. (For comparison: before the RX 460, the system was so silent that I usually couldn't even tell whether it was on or off.)

So now I'm thinking of replacing the dual stock cooler with Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 rev2 (which I currently have attached to an old GPU) + Noctua NF-F12 PWM (I have one attached to the CPU cooler, and I'm very pleased with its performance)

This should
1) lower the overall noise AND temperatures
2) let the air cool the VRMs, etc. on the card

But, the question is:
Are the GPU fan sockets standardized? They usually have the smaller socket, so to get the GPU card to control the Noctua with PWM, I was thinking of purchasing something like Gelid PWM VGA Fan Adaptor (or make one, myself), which is apparently meant precisely for situations like this. Would this work? The max input power of the Noctua is 0.6W, so at least that shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Scania]

Do you know if the Gigabyte VGA - XTREME ENGINE software app is compatible with my 780ti Gigabyte-Gaming?

The build quality of my gigabyte 780 was less than impressive. Another company to avoid for components

Quite the reverse of my experience, my WindForce 780ti is superbly built imo - much better than the Asus Direct CuII GTX 580 it replaced and runs very cool given its not a blower type design - not to mention it rocking BF1 @ 5760x1080 superbly!

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Bios update links

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5916#bios

how to re-flash

http://www.gigabyte.com/WebPage/40/index.htm

 

[peterhc]

Definitely will be going with gigabyte card next time, EVGA been no help whatsoever and I have been their loyal customer since gtx 260 ftw. Contacted them regardin issues with vrm and thats their reply.
Hello,

I am sorry for any confusion in dealing with this issue.

First let me say that the VRM/VRAM heat issue is hardly an issue at all. The original review that sited the high VRM temperatures was while the reviewer was running Furmark which is a severe stress test and not recommended by Nvidia for testing purposes.

Similar testing with thermal imaging while under 100% gaming loads showed temperatures of 70-85C. The benchmark furmark, its known to break down video cards, and it never recommend from nvidia to use the benchmark for more then 5 to 10mins but the reviewer as used for 2 hours. That benchmark hasn't been update since the 600 series, as a example furmark is running your vehicle, sitting and revving to redline for 2 hours that would seize the engine or cause other major issue. But if you wish to request for the optional thermal that you can install into your video card, you can used this link to request that pad. http://www.evga.com/thermalmod/ plus that link has a vbios update for your video card or if you don't feel comfortable. You can RMA the video card, login to your account and go to member, my products, and view details on your product. Start you RMA, it will create automatic ticket number for you to start the RMA process for the replacement of that unit. So the answer to your questions, yes we can RMA the video card have those thermal pad and vbios installed on your video card.

Regards,
EVGA

Simply lol

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Video with all the coolers taken apart. Cooling for all

https://xg.gigabyte.com/blog-detail.php?i=79

 

[gerardfraser]

OT a little here.(Looking for Updated BIOS)
I have a GeForce® GTX 1070 WINDFORCE OC (GV-N1070WF2OC-8GD).
NVIDIA Source BIOS Version: 86.04.26.00.47 with F10 BIOS

Which runs very cool and quite.It has Micron Vram and I was wondering if Gigabyte is going to release a updated BIOS for this card with the Micron Vram.


List of GTX 1070 cards W/WO Bios update

GeForce® GTX 1070 Mini ITX (rev. 1.0)(GV-N1070IX-8GD) -No Bios update

GeForce® GTX 1070 Mini ITX OC (GV-N1070IXOC-8GD)-No Bios update

GeForce® GTX 1070 WINDFORCE(GV-N1070WF2-8GD) -No Bios update

GeForce® GTX 1070 WINDFORCE OC (GV-N1070WF2OC-8GD)-No Bios update

GeForce® GTX 1070 Founders Edition(GV-N1070D5-8GD-B)-No Bios update

GeForce® GTX 1070 Xtreme Gaming (GV-N1070XTREME-8GD)-Updated Bios

GeForce® GTX 1070 G1 Gaming(GV-N1070G1 GAMING-8GD)-Updated Bios

 

[D1craig]

Definitely will be going with gigabyte card next time, EVGA been no help whatsoever and I have been their loyal customer since gtx 260 ftw. Contacted them regardin issues with vrm and thats their reply.
Hello,

I am sorry for any confusion in dealing with this issue.

First let me say that the VRM/VRAM heat issue is hardly an issue at all. The original review that sited the high VRM temperatures was while the reviewer was running Furmark which is a severe stress test and not recommended by Nvidia for testing purposes.

Similar testing with thermal imaging while under 100% gaming loads showed temperatures of 70-85C. The benchmark furmark, its known to break down video cards, and it never recommend from nvidia to use the benchmark for more then 5 to 10mins but the reviewer as used for 2 hours. That benchmark hasn't been update since the 600 series, as a example furmark is running your vehicle, sitting and revving to redline for 2 hours that would seize the engine or cause other major issue. But if you wish to request for the optional thermal that you can install into your video card, you can used this link to request that pad. http://www.evga.com/thermalmod/ plus that link has a vbios update for your video card or if you don't feel comfortable. You can RMA the video card, login to your account and go to member, my products, and view details on your product. Start you RMA, it will create automatic ticket number for you to start the RMA process for the replacement of that unit. So the answer to your questions, yes we can RMA the video card have those thermal pad and vbios installed on your video card.

Regards,
EVGA

Simply lol

No help whatsoever? What else can they do? Send a helicopter with an engineer to fit the pads for you and then chopper him back to where he came from? Lol

EDIT - didn't realise I was in a thread this old lol

 

[drunkenmaster]

Considering there is a Gigabyte rep in here and talking about VRM cooling, is there any chance of getting motherboards with actual heatsinks on VRMs in the near future as they used to have, rather than these blocky designed stupid heatsinks that have taken over motherboard VRM cooling. Designed to look good and be wide enough for logos, but have absolutely terrible surface area with often one large thick and incredibly inefficient fin connected to single flat surface at the top.

One of the reasons I put off jumping into Zen straight away was, well there were lots of boards I didn't like for various reasons but they all have this newer stupid vrm 'cooling'. AS the x299 issues seem to suggest, a lot of these 'coolers' are acting more like insulators with as good or better cooling being achieved with a fan with the 'heat sink' removed.

If any company started making higher end boards with actual heatsinks on the VRMs, you know the type, flat base, lots of fins or pins, as much surface area as possible and not just surfaces to put logos on, then that would I'll say be a major selling point.

Also just for the hell of it, have Gigabyte noted how wide the majority of cases are, also realise how many people run a single card with no other pci-e devices, or maybe one. In every case I've bought in the past decade and in every system I've used I could have used a much wider card that could easily take 120mm fans and I could also have taken up 3-4 slots for cooling.

If someone out there was to make a wider card with a bigger heatsink and had 25mm thick 120mm fans, that company would get my money when it came to buying a AIB card with the best cooling.

There is way more space around my GPU than my CPU, yet I can get a gigantic heatsink that fits 2 140mm fans for as quiet as possible yet excellent cooling. Yet with a few inches between the gpu and side of my case, with 3-4 inches spare between my gpu fans and PSU, there are no extra large heatsink options. Everyone goes for 2-2.5slot cooling with 90mm fans if you're lucky and never 25mm deep fans. The space is there, use it.