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GPUs with zero RPM mode?

SoundsGood

SoundsGood

SoundsGood

Soldato
Joined
16 May 2008
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I'm trying to find a good value GPU that is silent when not gaming.

So far I have only found GTX970 with "Zero RPM" mode and various passive options, GTX710, GTX1030, GTX1650, etc

Do any others exist?
 
The majority of cards from the past few generations will have idle fan stop, even when it comes to the most high-end GPUs. The exceptions are usually the "cheap" models with small coolers, plus blower-style designs and reference cards prior to the current generation. Just check out product pages and reviews for any specific model that you're interested in.
 
Even my R9 290 had zero RPM mode, and that was 5/6 years ago.Most AIB cards will have it now.

As for good value ... best of luck with that!
 
SoundsGood said:
I'm trying to find a good value GPU that is silent when not gaming.

So far I have only found GTX970 with "Zero RPM" mode and various passive options, GTX710, GTX1030, GTX1650, etc

Do any others exist?
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my rx6700xt sapphire is completely silent when not gaming to be fair the whole system is pretty much silent

But I do miss the days of passive cooled gpus dont even know if its possible now
 
I’m looking at my 3080 Vision AIB right now and the fans haven’t moved all morning. It’s idling on the desktop and doing no work at all. The fans only spin up when it gets over 50’C. As said above I’d expect every new card to have this ability.
 
dmfg said:
This is easy. Almost every 20xx and 30xx series card has zero RPM mode. [..]
Click to expand...

Even further back than that. My 1070Ti has zero RPM mode and even back then it was so common that it was barely mentioned. Which, I think, is why the OP hasn't seen it mentioned on any card more recent than a 970 - it's become so commonplace that it's no longer something that a card manufacturer can use for marketing. I think it's mentioned in passing in the full manual for my card, somewhere.

SoundsGood said:
Thanks, I didn't realise this was so common.
It should make finding a card a bit easier albeit still a rip off.
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There are degrees of it, though. On the whole, a card with a better cooler will take a heavier load before needing to spin up the fans and will be able to spin them slower (and thus quieter). My card is very quiet even under sustained maximum load. I paid a fair bit extra for the most efficient air-cooled 1070Ti I could find and I got what I paid for. But I think almost any graphics card from the last few years should be able to stay in passive cooling when not gaming (or doing anything else that's a heavy workload) because routine use is such a low load on graphics cards nowadays. For example, right now my graphics card is drawing 11.5W. Even with passive cooling, the highest temp on the card is 35C. Nowhere near needing active cooling.
 
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WHat I will say is that some card implementation of it is annoying though. I had a Zotac card once that made an annoying faint click as the fans turned on and off and if you were playing a game where the temps hovered around the change over point, they just pulsed on and off the whole time...

They should have some sort of function where once they come on, they only go back to zero rpm well below the coming on temp or something.
 
Jono8 said:
WHat I will say is that some card implementation of it is annoying though. I had a Zotac card once that made an annoying faint click as the fans turned on and off and if you were playing a game where the temps hovered around the change over point, they just pulsed on and off the whole time...[..]
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That reminds me of the very early days of 3D graphics cards, when you needed two graphics cards - one for 2D and one for 3D. They clicked when you switched from 2D to 3D.

Eh, when I were a lad :)

Hmm...now I'm doubting my memory. I'm sure I remember a click, but it was a long time ago.
 
Jono8 said:
WHat I will say is that some card implementation of it is annoying though. I had a Zotac card once that made an annoying faint click as the fans turned on and off and if you were playing a game where the temps hovered around the change over point, they just pulsed on and off the whole time...

They should have some sort of function where once they come on, they only go back to zero rpm well below the coming on temp or something.
Click to expand...

This is how the most of the 30xx series zero RPM implementations work AFAIK - you can set the "turn on" temp in afterburner fairly freely, but then they will spin until the temp drops to 42 or 43 degrees regardless of the zero RPM limit.
 
dmfg said:
This is how the most of the 30xx series zero RPM implementations work AFAIK - you can set the "turn on" temp in afterburner fairly freely, but then they will spin until the temp drops to 42 or 43 degrees regardless of the zero RPM limit.
Click to expand...

Thats good. The Zotac implemenation some time ago was rubbish.
 
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