Quiet cooling for third-party RX 5700 XT

piphil

piphil

piphil

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Joined
7 Sep 2011
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4
Hi all,

I bought a base-level PowerColor RX 5700 XT for my new rig, which I'm happy with performance-wise:

https://www.powercolor.com/product?id=1565842787

However, I'm a fan of quiet PCs, and despite it being inside my (now somewhat old) Coolermaster Silencio 550, the card gets pretty loud, especially when I use the 'Auto Tuning' feature in the Radeon Software.*

I've never tried replacing the cooling system on a graphic card, but I see there are replacement coolers available - either cooling blocks or block and fan combinations, or even AIO units.

However, most of them specify that they're certified compatible only with the reference design cards, and my PowerColor card is not reference.

So what are my options? How would I go about choosing a cooling solution for this card? One thing I've wondered is whether I could keep the cooling block, but replace the fans with quieter models? Is this an option?

Many thanks for any advice in advance!

* I'm aware this probably isn't the best way of overclocking a GPU, and may be contributing to the noise problem...
 
Hi postmanfw, thanks for the reply. :)

I'd had a look at the newer version of that cooler, the version IV, and the reviews I've seen look good. I think the main difference is that the version IV comes with a backplate? This wouldn't be useable on my card as presumably the backplate is shaped for the reference card.

Would the IV version also work? I take your suggestion on a second-hand unit, but I'm happy to shell out a bit more for everything to come in a single package and to have warranty cover.
 
Having done a bit more research, it appears the difference between the III and IV is that the III comes with mini heat-sinks to put on the IC's etc on the top of the board, while the IV comes with the backplate and pads to apply to the back of the board instead - so I'd need to use the backplate. It looks like the backplate will work with third-party cards - at least, I've seen reviews using the version IV with other cards than my own, not specifically the PowerColor version. I'm tempted by the version IV as the installation process is a bit more fiddly, but I can imagine the backplate has more surface area and heat capacity than the little heatsinks. I'd need to make sure there was good airflow over the backplate, and it's possible any advantage would be lost by the fact the heat has to travel through the PCB...
 
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