OK, what ever happened to Passive coolers?

[Ice Tea]

Not even any like the Accelero S3 listed on Arctic.de any longer?

 

[david25]

I think cards started to use too much power, you'll find the odd 1030 with passive cooling and then its fan stop at best

 

[Ice Tea]

The basic rule used to be if the card only draws slot power then you can passive cool it, i'm guessing that's changed.

 

[Tetras]

I'd say that idle fan stop made it partially redundant and plenty of brands have coolers that are very quiet when gaming. If you have a small PC for casual use then you can just get an APU/IGP so need to even buy a graphics card. I think silent computing in general is much less of a thing now we have CPUs/GPUs clocking down and such large case and graphics card fans and SSDs.

 

[keyser van someone]

Yeah I went down the rabbit hole of silent cooling a while back and its possible but expensive. You could try a massive CPU cooler on a GPU though

 

[Murphy]

Raijintek still do them...

Raijintek Morpheus II Core Black Heatpipe VGA Cooler

Order Raijintek Morpheus II Core Black Heatpipe VGA Cooler now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Raijintek Morpheus 8057 Heatpipe VGA Cooler For Nvidia RTX and Radeon RX - Black

Order Raijintek Morpheus 8057 Heatpipe VGA Cooler For Nvidia RTX and Radeon RX - Black now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

 

[Minstadave]

Raijintek still do them...

Raijintek Morpheus II Core Black Heatpipe VGA Cooler

Order Raijintek Morpheus II Core Black Heatpipe VGA Cooler now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Raijintek Morpheus 8057 Heatpipe VGA Cooler For Nvidia RTX and Radeon RX - Black

Order Raijintek Morpheus 8057 Heatpipe VGA Cooler For Nvidia RTX and Radeon RX - Black now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

I don't think either are designed to be run passive. The fins are too close together and the card blocks effective convection.

 

[drakulton]

 

[Ice Tea]

Raijintek still do them...

I don't think either are designed to be run passive. The fins are too close together and the card blocks effective convection.

Thanks Murphy but as Minstadave said the fins are very close together and i couldn't find anything online with anyone trying to use the passive.

 

[Ice Tea]

GeForce GTX 1650 Passive Cooling - We modify an OC card to the silent card and marvel! | igorsLAB | igor´sLAB

Yes, so I just couldn't miss this conversion. After I had already converted some cards in the past, this time the current GeForce GTX 1650 has to believe in it. And if you don't believe it, you can.

www.igorslab.de

These guys in Germany stuck an old Accelero S1 on a GTX 1650 but it looks like a lot of faffing about.

​

 

[subbytna]

You really need decent case airflow to have a CPU passive cooler working to an acceptable level. Otherwise it just traps heat with no way of dissapating. Very low RPM 140mm AF fans work a charm

 

[andybird123]

Even the CPU passive ones are only designed to shift <100w, so that puts most GPU's out of the running, some of them give the option of adding a fan and doing so doubles the tdp (e.g. 65w to 130w) but even with a fan you aren't going to be cooling more than a 3050/1660

 

[drakulton]

I suppose a case like the fractal torrent might be okay, as it has 2 x 180mm blowing upward at the GPU.

 

[lsg1r]

I'd say combination of hotter gpu chips AND memory, arguably more on the memory when you consider how hot some get now. Also likely to get worse with next gen.

Throw in fans that can stop/start as needed and for most people passive isn't really needed, hell my 1060 6gb doesn't even spin up unless I'm in a game (admittedly 3x120mm fans blowing upwards onto gpu likely help lol).

 

[Ice Tea]

Is Fan stop a software or hardware thing, will it work in Linux?

 

[Murphy]

Thanks Murphy but as Minstadave said the fins are very close together and i couldn't find anything online with anyone trying to use the passive.

If there a reason for going totally passive?

Only reason i ask is because going totally passive is a big ask, even the best (most expensive) solutions barely manage to tame some higher end hardware (+200 W), a 120mm fan running at 300-500 RPM makes things much easier.

Is Fan stop a software or hardware thing, will it work in Linux?

Hardware AFAIK.

If Linux is your concern you can setup lm-sensors and use a fan control program.

 

[arknor]

Is Fan stop a software or hardware thing, will it work in Linux?

isn't it a fancurve thing although loads of cards surely have it default int he firmware anyway

I use afterburner for a custom fan curve either way no idea if they do a linux version though


Some case fans can be stopped as well although a bunch still run at 300rpm.

 

[drakulton]

Is Fan stop a software or hardware thing, will it work in Linux?

Looks like there are a few alternatives to MSI Afterburner for Linux

https://alternativeto.net/software/msi-afterburner/?platform=linux

 

[Major774]

In the words of Jeremy Clarkson... "POWER!!!!!!!!!"

 

[Aretak]

Is Fan stop a software or hardware thing, will it work in Linux?

It's part of the fan curve programmed into the card's BIOS. Some cards have a pretty annoying default behaviour though, from starting the fans at too low of a temperature to pulsing behaviour at lower fan speed percentages to massive overshoot when the fans initially turn on. That can usually be mitigated with a custom fan curve.

And yes, there are a whole bunch of tools available to do that under Linux, such as CoreCtrl for AMD cards. GreenWithEnvy is the easiest one to use for Nvidia cards and will also handle overclocking and power limits. Not undervolting though, sadly, as Nvidia refuse to allow voltage control in their proprietary Linux driver. No such issue with AMD or Intel since their drivers are open source.