Why is reference cooling dropped so quickly ?

[BoozerDawg]

Anyone else find it a bit annoying when you order a card which shows it as using the normal blow-it out the back cooling, to get instead one that dumps it in the case ?

It seems to happen pretty damn quickly, the initial stock uses it all, then all this wierd and random cooling stuff comes out a month or 2 later, and nearly everytime, from my experience, its crap ! Temps are almost always higher. Sure my case could use some better airflow, but then it wouldnt be as much an issue if the card arrived with cooling that dumped it out the case.

The only cards that appear to use the normal cooling are priced much higher too.

Why do they do this ? To bring prices down quickly ? Anyone else get annoyed by it too ?

 

[drunkenmaster]

You realise the 5850/70 have been out for almost 6 months, it NEVER happens quickly. Infact its painfully slow, just like the Prolimatech 5870 cooler, the Zalman 5870 cooler(which still isn't out) and the Spitfire cooler(not actually sure when they came out, but only just seen a review this week) came out in the past couple weeks, next couple weeks.

Unfortunately, 3rd party cooling is far from quick these days.

The 480gtx should have something faster, because heat, temps, size and mounting was pretty much decided on 6 months ago aswell.

As for temps being higher, not really. 99% of cases sold for years are 120mm fan cases with decent airflow, dumping heat in a case, with a decent speed fan means a minor temp increase.

Overclocking your cpu 10% will give you smeg all in game performance, overclocking your gpu 10% will give you a 8-9% performance increase. CPU temps, which will increase marginally, doesn't matter for gamers, neither the very minor temp increases to northbridges/memory.

IN a decent case the air is replaced every few seconds, exhausting sinks and blower fans, are absolute crap, proper fans and a proper sink give massively better cooling.

Generally though cards that come with different cooling go for the same temps + quieter fan situation, though sometimes they go for same noise for much better cooling.

I don't think theres a non stock design for a 5xxx series, or a 4xxx series, or really anything, that has worse temps than stock.

Exhausting designs and blower fans should be relegated to sli/xfire and use in shuttle type mini cases only.

 

[r3loaded]

Well, another point in favour of reference cards (at least on the Radeon 5000 series) is the ability to overvolt and hence overclock the card. Cards such as the Vapor-X physically lack the voltage controllers needed for this.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Thats not a standard reference card thing, thats just the 58xx generation can be easily voltmodded due to the specific reference design. In other generations we've had reference cards with no voltmodding, and non reference cards from a few manufacturers that allow voltmodding, like Asus, and Abit quite a ways in the past had a couple volt mod varients.

Theres no reason a non reference card can't have a programable voltage regulator, some companies try to eek out every extra cent, which you tend to want to do as prices reduce due to competition. But other non reference cards are built for better overclocking.

You'd guess, though the first review didn't go into it, that the MSI lightning, and the MSI twin whatever its called will have changable voltage, on a non reference PCB and its not supposed to cost more while having better cooling.

I happen to have a reference 5850, and just bought a prolimatech cooler, I could just about have fitted the spitfire but its a pain in the behind. I got this one as they are advertising it as a future compatible cooler, with a mounting method whereby they will release a mounting bracket only quickly upon the release of new gpu's so it can be reused on future cards.

Which would also cut down the developement cycle and hopefully let you get a decent cooler very quickly.

Last gen, the 4870x2 arctic cooling solution was finally released some 6 or 8 months after the card was launched. LIke now, 6 months after they are available you finally get some decent coolers, why it takes them so damn long I don't know. Watercooling seems to adapt far faster to new designs as fullcover blocks tend to become available within weeks of launch, if not almost right on launch.

Kills two birds with one stone, buying early(which proved great value this gen, and with 4870x2's which were £330 on launch and £400+ a month later) tends to leave you with few options, and £30-50 a cooler every gen is expensive, a one off cooler that you can move to a new card for £5, assuming it needs a new mounting bracket, might turn out to be very good value.

ALl testing suggest so far it offers some 30-40C lower load temps than the stock cooler, not bad cooling

 

[C64]

I don't like those leaf blower coolers they are so much noisier than the ones with bigger fans.
They exhaust the air yes but it comes at the cost of noise.

 

[Sindri]

Well, another point in favour of reference cards (at least on the Radeon 5000 series) is the ability to overvolt and hence overclock the card. Cards such as the Vapor-X physically lack the voltage controllers needed for this.

My 5770 asus Cucore has a superb custom cooler and i can use the voltage tweak tech. The vapor-x model is highly overrated. My case isnt great yet at idle the gpu hovers around 33 degrees, in my experience cards with non-reference coolers are virtually always superior.

I had a 3850 and the reference design cooler was pretty feeble, personally i wouldnt go for a reference cooled gpu again unless it was a considerable amount less than its custom cooled counterpart.

 

[r3loaded]

Thats not a standard reference card thing, thats just the 58xx generation can be easily voltmodded due to the specific reference design. In other generations we've had reference cards with no voltmodding, and non reference cards from a few manufacturers that allow voltmodding, like Asus, and Abit quite a ways in the past had a couple volt mod varients.

Theres no reason a non reference card can't have a programable voltage regulator, some companies try to eek out every extra cent, which you tend to want to do as prices reduce due to competition. But other non reference cards are built for better overclocking.

Mmm, it's fairly haphazard. Is there any good list of cards (both reference and custom cooling) that tells you whether they can be overvolted? The manufacturers pages are pretty useless, apart from Asus/MSI.

 

[Nelly]

Sapphire is cutting costs even on the original reference 5850's.

On another forum someone bought a Reference Cooling Sapphire, only to recieve it with a Vapor-X style cooler.

Also the PCB was blue their own reference design, so voltage tweaking with a different bios is out of the question, he managed an extra 50Mhz on the core i.e. 775Mhz that's it.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Yup, but then the reference ones are only designed for the same speed, digital VRM's and programable voltage are incidental, they aren't a "feature" of anything but the MSI and Asus models, everyone else just got a bonus.

Problem is they want to save money by cutting it back to the bare bones of where it works, because the massive majority of them will never be overclocked a single Mhz in their lives.

Really the only cards to buy if you have to have it, are companies that support it on purpose, so MSI and Asus at the moment.

For the vast majority of buyers improved cooling, or less noise is far more important than overclocking.

The biggest hurdle for people at the moment, in finding a cheap original reference design is the fact that rarely has demand stayed SO high for a card for so long that finding one even a month old in stock anywhere would be basically impossible.

Thing to do would be to e-mail/phone someone like OCUK and ask them what models are still the reference design then ask them to pop one aside for you and stick it with your order when you place it. That or wait and grab the MSI twin frozen whatever the heck it is, the lightning version will be pre-overclocked but identical and cost more, why pay for it to be pre-overclocked when you'll go far beyond that anyway

 

[Martini1991]

Sapphire is cutting costs even on the original reference 5850's.

On another forum someone bought a Reference Cooling Sapphire, only to recieve it with a Vapor-X style cooler.

Also the PCB was blue their own reference design, so voltage tweaking with a different bios is out of the question, he managed an extra 50Mhz on the core i.e. 775Mhz that's it.

Don't even try to tell me he wasn't warned several times.

 

[555BUK]

99% of non-reference PCB's are designed for one reason - cutting costs. Companies like Sapphire then like to attach "upgraded coolers" which do not cost them much more because they typically contain less copper. These coolers may reduce temps but most of the reduction is due to larger fans which push more air. After producing a cheaper board, they then charge you a premium for it.

My reference 5850 will hit 1025core at 1.25v and 1300mem. I could have paid more for a Vapor-X (or similar) but world have lost ~10% GPU performance. My card runs jquiet to my ears.

 

[johny dolan]

My new sapphire has that new cooler also

http://sites.google.com/site/ayupfromdik/files/crossfire.JPG?attredirects=0&d=1

Looks odd next to the reference card.