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Replacement fans for an RX580?

SY85

SY85

SY85

Associate
Joined
10 Feb 2003
Posts
180
Location
Haywards Heath, West Sussex
I want to replace the noisy fans on my PowerColor RX580 but I am not sure which fans to go for. The stock ones are giving me a headache. Sounds like a jet taking off :( A new card is out of the question for a few months so I need to reduce the racket this one makes for now. I have tried moderating the fan speed etc using the AMD software, which works for maybe 10 seconds and then the card seems to override the settings and the fans ramp up again. I will be stripping it down and replacing the old thermal paste which may help a little but I know these PowerColor RX580 cards are loud anyway.

Does anyone have any suggestions for which fans to go for?
 
Yes I thought about that and may give it a go once I have replaced the thermal paste. I just have very little confidence that this card with stock fans can be made quieter. Apparently, it is well-known for how loud it is.
 
Tetras said:
Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier just to undervolt? Polaris was usually way overvolted out of the box.
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Hmmm, my personal experience with the Red Devil version of the RX580, was that it was very finicky with regards to its power; it was easy to undervolt but stability was very quickly a major issue. And even then, it had a tendency to override the GPU fan speeds and shoot them to max quite often. No amount of in built fan control prevented this short of it overheating and the automatic shut down cutting power to the whole system.

In the end on my one, I had deshrouded and ghetto modded mine (Red Devil RX580 8GB) with a Noctua zip tie mod - first with A12x25s then out to A9s when I upgraded my GPU earlier this year (found that 120mm fans and 90mm fans made little difference for this mod other than the fans different sound profiles, so moved my A12s out). This was the only reason it didn't sound as bad compared to the stock fans in my case; had to use the inline resistors that Noctua provide with their fans to keep them from going to 2k rpm and max out at 1700 rpm. Suspect that there's a hotspot or temperature sensor that's not being read properly (for users to see) on the GPU but is working and that overrides the GPU fans software settings and sends them to max easily as it exceeds their "overheating, hit max fan speeds now" rating.

In any event, I believe all GPU fans would be the same noisy mess and thus it wouldn't really matter which one you get. The first thing I'd do is make sure the repasting was done to see if that helps as OP is already aiming to do. But if it won't help, your options then head towards ghetto modding territory where you can control any aftermarket fans through different controls (such as a different fan controller, bypassing the GPU control entirely), or adding inline resistors (lower fan speed) cables in between the fans and the GPU so keep it from hitting max speeds. If you go this route, I'd look to grabbing the cheapest and quietest fans available - so something like the Artctic fans that you can get in a bundle. Considering you're upgrading "soonish" spending (too much) more to quieten the card would be kinda pointless.
 
SY85 said:
Yes I thought about that and may give it a go once I have replaced the thermal paste. I just have very little confidence that this card with stock fans can be made quieter. Apparently, it is well-known for how loud it is.
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Play with undervolting, I had a Red Devil and it responded very well once you found the sweet spot. The Polaris series as suggested by @Tetras was far more power invested than it had any right to be.

It might take a little time and a bit of a fart around, but it's much preferable to physically replacing the fans for what is frankly a sub-standard heatsink anyway.

You'd be spending good money on bad at that point, and assuming you have a decent case with good airflow I suspect undervolting will be good enough. If not, sell the card and upgrade to something less problematic before messing about with fans tbh -- but that does depend on what you're willing to spend.

At the very most I would repaste, those cards are often slim on thermal compound so @Meddling-Monk suggesting that is spot on tbh.
 
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Thanks all. Yeah it is a cost vs benefits situation. I could just buy a new card but because of budget restraints over the next few months, the sort of card I could buy perhaps would not be worth it? Perhaps an RX 5500/6500?

I will try the undervolt thing today and see how that goes.

By the way, my wife has the Ryzen 7 5700G in her machine and is using the integrated graphics on that CPU so whatever graphics card I put in there obviously needs to be a large improvement over that.
 
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According to online search results, the GPU equivalent in the Ryzen 7 5700G is approximately a RX550. And the RX580 and the RX 5500 both are equivalent of each other, so you can in theory grab that and it'll give the same perforamce as what you could have expected from the RX580. The only issue is, it's still not cheap to grab when you think about it (approximately £100 to grab, less on second hand) that money could have been put towards a new GPU entirely instead.

And of course, there's no guarantee that the new GPU will not also go max GPU fans, as it might be there's not enough airflow in your system to drop the heat from it in the first place, but odds are good it won't (as likelihood is the heatsink on the Powercolor 580 is just not covering the overheating part well and thus it sends the fans high, so a new GPU with a different heatsink design might cover the same sensors and not be an issue). Just something you need to be aware of in case it repeats itself. In which case you know it's a different issue to tackle.
 
Ok so I cleaned up the RX580 and fitted into my machine. Tried the undervolt thing but it was having none of it. It would crash even with the smallest of adjustments. I did follow several RX580 specific guides. I understand that not all cards will take to undervolting so I guess I just have one of those. However, the big surprise was the fans were not kicking in, even in New World. Temps are not rising above 60 deg! I mean obviously, the fans are working just not in overdrive as they were before. I also ran the Superposition benchmark in 4K and it was all fine.

So for now at least, I think it's a result. I will probably give my wife the RX 6600, just to be on the safe side. I can't see much if any difference in performance in the games I run, New World, Rift and WOW.
 
The RX580 is still working fine. Have not heard the fans at all since replacing the thermal paste. Wife is very happy with her now, new, RX6600. A win all around I think.

Thanks to everyone for your input and suggestions.
 
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