# ASUS GeForce RTX 3070 Noctua OC



## W1zzard (Oct 20, 2021)

The ASUS GeForce RTX 3070 Noctua OC is the quietest graphics card we ever tested thanks to a dual 120 mm fan setup made by Noctua. It runs so quietly, you'll have to put your ear right next to it to hear it at all even when fully loaded while gaming. 

*Show full review*


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## deu (Oct 20, 2021)

That is indeed a silent card! I was wondering which metric they would choose temps or noise to excel in. It was properbly given that noise was choosen. Sexy looking too if you dig the brown noctua style.


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## chinobis (Oct 20, 2021)

Mrsp: X Street price: XXX I feel like gamer/enthusiast oriented tech sites should embargo GPU vendors until prices/availability becomes somewhat reasonable again.


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## Xzibit (Oct 20, 2021)

Around 1300rpm is when I start to hear my 12x25s so its expected to be quiet.  Most GPU cards use 90mm fans, 120mm can run quieter


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## deu (Oct 20, 2021)

chinobis said:


> Mrsp: X Street price: XXX I feel like gamer/enthusiast oriented tech sites should embargo GPU vendors until prices/availability becomes somewhat reasonable again.


Or just state falsely high prices to troll!


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## Rowsol (Oct 20, 2021)

23 DBa is inaudible. Amazing really.


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## tomfuegue (Oct 20, 2021)

The best graphics card to build a silent PC.


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## R-T-B (Oct 21, 2021)

chinobis said:


> Mrsp: X Street price: XXX I feel like gamer/enthusiast oriented tech sites should embargo GPU vendors until prices/availability becomes somewhat reasonable again.


That would do literally nothing.


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## Turmania (Oct 21, 2021)

Awesome review. By the way how did you get hold of the card to review, I was under impression Asus was not sending it out for reviews.


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## Flanker (Oct 21, 2021)

Holy crap lol. This thing is super quiet. But quad slot design is pushing it for mini itx cases


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## cadaveca (Oct 21, 2021)

Flanker said:


> Holy crap lol. This thing is super quiet. But quad slot design is pushing it for mini itx cases


I was thinking the same thing; perfect card for HTPC/gaming PC in the livingroom, but htat cooler is huge.


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## WhoDecidedThat (Oct 21, 2021)

Y'all are impressed by the Noctua cooler but I am wondering how frickin' awesome it would be to have a 3070 with the dual *triple slot* 3090 FE cooler.


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## wheresmycar (Oct 21, 2021)

funny thing is at some point i was wandering whether one of these days these GPU manufacturers would get on-board with noctua fans or in the least produce fans as good/similar as Noctua. Noise levels are amazing... hate the colour but i usually mount horizontally hence no problems there. 

$800+ nah


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## wolf (Oct 21, 2021)

@W1zzard Did you have to buy one to review it?


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## Crackong (Oct 21, 2021)

Comon,
The "No RGB Lighting" should be considered a PRO here.


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## mechtech (Oct 21, 2021)

Wow 4 slot cooler.  It would be nice though if noctua and others made aftermarket gpu air coolers again.  I remember getting an Arctic cooling accelero S1 and slapping dual 120 thin scythes on it.  Could run furmark all day and not break 55C and not even here it and it was 2.5 slots.


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## Selaya (Oct 21, 2021)

blanarahul said:


> Y'all are impressed by the Noctua cooler but I am wondering how frickin' awesome it would be to have a 3070 with the *dual slot* 3090 FE cooler.


3090 FE is triple, not dual slot


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## lZKoce (Oct 21, 2021)

No WAY! You got your hands on this one. Ahhh I didn't see this coming. Off to the review then, I have no quarrel with the colour scheme


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## AusWolf (Oct 21, 2021)

_"Removing the cooler shroud wasn't as easy as I expected, reason being that *it is glued to the heatsink*, so it'll take additional force."_

Oh God, why?  The whole point of a card like this is serviceability. With the cooler shroud glued down, it's just a graphics card that takes 4 slots for no reason, and its whole appeal is gone.


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## Readlight (Oct 21, 2021)

I would like to ged these wind blades in size of 5m.


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## ZoneDymo (Oct 21, 2021)

Noctua is quality, hence I like them mostly sticking to their guns with the colour scheme. 
You see those colours, you know they have a quality product.


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## Valantar (Oct 21, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> _"Removing the cooler shroud wasn't as easy as I expected, reason being that *it is glued to the heatsink*, so it'll take additional force."_
> 
> Oh God, why?  The whole point of a card like this is serviceability. With the cooler shroud glued down, it's just a graphics card that takes 4 slots for no reason, and its whole appeal is gone.


It's two pieces of double-sided foam tape between the fan hubs and heatsink, likely to avoid vibration or rattling and keep them separated. One-sided foam tape would have been better, but this is really not a problem.

Btw, if anyone is interested in the differences between this heatsink and the quite similar TUF, der8auer has a good teardown and discussion (including design schematics) on his YT channel. Tl;dw: this is a bit thicker and has the heatpipes moved around a bit to better fit the airflow patterns of the NF-A12x25s.


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## W1zzard (Oct 21, 2021)

Turmania said:


> Awesome review. By the way how did you get hold of the card to review, I was under impression Asus was not sending it out for reviews.





wolf said:


> @W1zzard Did you have to buy one to review it?


ASUS sent me the card



Crackong said:


> Comon,
> The "No RGB Lighting" should be considered a PRO here.


As mentioned in the conclusion text



AusWolf said:


> _"Removing the cooler shroud wasn't as easy as I expected, reason being that *it is glued to the heatsink*, so it'll take additional force."_
> 
> Oh God, why?  The whole point of a card like this is serviceability. With the cooler shroud glued down, it's just a graphics card that takes 4 slots for no reason, and its whole appeal is gone.





Valantar said:


> It's two pieces of double-sided foam tape between the fan hubs and heatsink, likely to avoid vibration or rattling and keep them separated. One-sided foam tape would have been better, but this is really not a problem.


This. It's not a huge deal, but I still felt there could have been another option


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## Naito (Oct 21, 2021)

Still can't get on board with Noctua's colour schemes


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## TheDeeGee (Oct 21, 2021)

Xzibit said:


> Around 1300rpm is when I start to hear my 12x25s so its expected to be quiet.  Most GPU cards use 90mm fans, 120mm can run quieter


I really wish i was more deaf sometimes.

I got my A12x25 Chromax for the front of D15 this week, and around 900-950 RPM i can clearly hear it. Lucky i don't need to go any higher than 750 RPM until past 75C, which will never happen unless running a torture test.


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## Zareek (Oct 21, 2021)

Great cooling from great fans, who would have guessed that? lol... On the flip side, it looks barely better than if I threw it together myself. I love Noctua fans but that brown color they use is really awful. Shameful pricing, this industry has lost its mind!


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## Gungar (Oct 21, 2021)

Flanker said:


> Holy crap lol. This thing is super quiet. But quad slot design is pushing it for mini itx cases


 Fits perfectly in the Ncase M1


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## Chrispy_ (Oct 21, 2021)

Part of the reason this has such good noise-per-Watt is because it takes up 4.5 slots for a 170W card.

Der8auer already replaced the NF-A12x25 fans with a few others and performance/noise was similar. The Noctua fans were the best but only barely; 99% of the reason this card works so well is because it's so huge.

Personally I love the idea and wish more brands would make GPUs with a completely open heatsink and two 4-pin PWM headers for your choice of fan. The gimpy little ultra-thin fans included on most GPUs are clearly the limiting factor in a lot of off-the-shelf GPU cooler designs.


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## duynguyenle (Oct 21, 2021)

AusWolf said:


> _"Removing the cooler shroud wasn't as easy as I expected, reason being that *it is glued to the heatsink*, so it'll take additional force."_
> 
> Oh God, why?  The whole point of a card like this is serviceability. With the cooler shroud glued down, it's just a graphics card that takes 4 slots for no reason, and its whole appeal is gone.


It's just two little bits of double sided tape... I don't think it's gonna affect servicability in any way, shape or form.


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## lZKoce (Oct 21, 2021)

Chrispy_ said:


> Personally I love the idea and wish more brands would make GPUs with a completely open heatsink and two 4-pin PWM headers for your choice of fan.


I feel like the gap to do this is almost non-existent. In older times case manufacturers were boasting how LONG a GPU you can fit. But these days, length is rarely an issue. However, looking at my Nitro+ it sticks soooo past a standard pci slot, that it can easily accommodate a 25x15 fan. The case-support is there these days. Not sure how the value added model will work out for gpu manufacturers.


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## Valantar (Oct 21, 2021)

Chrispy_ said:


> Part of the reason this has such good noise-per-Watt is because it takes up 4.5 slots for a 170W card.
> 
> Der8auer already replaced the NF-A12x25 fans with a few others and performance/noise was similar. The Noctua fans were the best but only barely; 99% of the reason this card works so well is because it's so huge.
> 
> Personally I love the idea and wish more brands would make GPUs with a completely open heatsink and two 4-pin PWM headers for your choice of fan. The gimpy little ultra-thin fans included on most GPUs are clearly the limiting factor in a lot of off-the-shelf GPU cooler designs.


Yep, even 15mm thick standard fans would be great (and even 92mm fans, whether 25 or 14-15mm thick). The super-thin fans used on most GPUs are likely the reason why GPUs are typically so loud - trying to create enough static pressure to push air through a dense heatsink with 10mm or less thick fans is just going to be loud no matter what.

Just give us a bare heatsink with threaded holes for mounting and bundled screws for mounting and let us use whatever fans we want. Bonus points for mounting points for 3D printed baffles/shrouds for directing airflow. Or just partner with a semi-reputable fan maker - Be Quiet, Arctic, Nidec, Sunon, whatever. That would be amazing.


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## HD64G (Oct 21, 2021)

Hey @W1zzard , the 6600XT is missing from this chart: https://tpucdn.com/review/asus-geforce-rtx-3070-noctua-oc/images/energy-efficiency.png


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## Ravenas (Oct 21, 2021)

Amazingly low noise level. Thanks for your review W1zzard. Noctua should be selling GPU coolers to market, not just pairing with OEMs.


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## Taraquin (Oct 21, 2021)

Very impressive! I hope this is the future for GPUs where you can use changeable fans. The standard Tuf cooler is very capable, but seing 2C and 2dB lower in perf mode is very impressive.


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## TheUn4seen (Oct 21, 2021)

Valantar said:


> Just give us a bare heatsink with threaded holes for mounting and bundled screws for mounting and let us use whatever fans we want. Bonus points for mounting points for 3D printed baffles/shrouds for directing airflow. Or just partner with a semi-reputable fan maker - Be Quiet, Arctic, Nidec, Sunon, whatever. That would be amazing.


I guarantee most consumers wouldn't install anything, send the card for RMA and badmouth the company online. But I do agree that using standard threaded mounting holes and fan connectors would be great, even if the included fans were of poor quality.

All in all, a good review of a very interesting product. I personally disagree with putting "no RGB" as a negative, to me it's just a wire I have to disconnect before use and e-waste I had to pay for.


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## Valantar (Oct 21, 2021)

TheUn4seen said:


> I guarantee most consumers wouldn't install anything, send the card for RMA and badmouth the company online. But I do agree that using standard threaded mounting holes and fan connectors would be great, even if the included fans were of poor quality.
> 
> All in all, a good review of a very interesting product. I personally disagree with putting "no RGB" as a negative, to me it's just a wire I have to disconnect before use and e-waste I had to pay for.


Sure, but alleviating that would be easy enough: put a huge orange/yellow sticker over the front of the heatsink saying "INSTALL FANS BEFORE USE" (like those "CONNECT YOUR DISPLAY CABLE TO THE DGPU, NOT THE IGPU" stickers on prebuilts) and make the BIOS throw an error on boot if nothing is connected to the fan headers (with some way of disabling this for water cooling, I guess).


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## W1zzard (Oct 21, 2021)

HD64G said:


> Hey @W1zzard , the 6600XT is missing from this chart: https://tpucdn.com/review/asus-geforce-rtx-3070-noctua-oc/images/energy-efficiency.png


Fixed


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## Frode Bergeton Nilsen (Oct 21, 2021)

TheDeeGee said:


> I really wish i was more deaf sometimes.
> 
> I got my A12x25 Chromax for the front of D15 this week, and around 900-950 RPM i can clearly hear it. Lucky i don't need to go any higher than 750 RPM until past 75C, which will never happen unless running a torture test.


I am getting old. Do you find a single A12x25 clearly audible at 900rpm? As in just running a single fan, and nothing else?

I struggle to hear them at this speed, if using only a couple. Running 24 NF-F12, I can clearly hear them at about 300RPM and beyond. But I am getting old.

As for the db charts, I guess I need to realize that the systems I make, run in the 20db territory, as I run sub 800rpm for all the 4 A12x25s in my builds. Time to go live.


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## Valantar (Oct 21, 2021)

Frode Bergeton Nilsen said:


> I am getting old. Do you find a single A12x25 clearly audible at 900rpm? As in just running a single fan, and nothing else?
> 
> I struggle to hear them at this speed, if using only a couple. Running 24 NF-F12, I can clearly hear them at about 300RPM and beyond. But I am getting old.
> 
> As for the db charts, I guess I need to realize that the systems I make, run in the 20db territory, as I run sub 800rpm for all the 4 A12x25s in my builds. Time to go live.


Why on earth do you have 24 fans?  At that point even the motor hum at low speeds is likely to be audible.


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## spixel (Oct 22, 2021)

The quest for a 'silent' pc is neverending.. do not even bother.
Every time you get it more 'silent' you keep trying to reduce noise.
Eventually you realise removing all noise is impossible and that you have tinnitus
Coming from someone that tried this as far as having a passive power supply, passive cpu, passive gpu (with fan attached)
This GPU is not silent.
For a 120mm fan , for me, I could notice anything above 700rpm. Or 500rpm for a 140mm.
Now I don't give a cr@p and happily have 2500rpm fans.
Its all relative. Noise is only annoying if you are used to less noise. Once you adjust, and stick to something, its all the same.
ps:that gpu is fricken ugly and stupid looking


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## claes (Oct 22, 2021)

I dunno, 23dB is well below most people’s noise floors.









						ASUS GeForce RTX 3070 Noctua OC Review - The Quietest Graphics Card
					

The ASUS GeForce RTX 3070 Noctua OC is the quietest graphics card we ever tested thanks to a dual 120 mm fan setup made by Noctua. It runs so quietly, you'll have to put your ear right next to it to hear it at all even when fully loaded while gaming.




					www.techpowerup.com


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## Valantar (Oct 22, 2021)

spixel said:


> The quest for a 'silent' pc is neverending.. do not even bother.
> Every time you get it more 'silent' you keep trying to reduce noise.
> Eventually you realise removing all noise is impossible and that you have tinnitus
> Coming from someone that tried this as far as having a passive power supply, passive cpu, passive gpu (with fan attached)
> ...


That sounds like an unproductively all-or-nothing approach. Minimizing noise is about optimalization, not achieving perfection. As you say, removing all noise is impossible (and if you were able to do so you would be overwhelmed by the sound of your own circulatory system and organs, so, not recommended), but achieving a more comfortable environment is entirely possible. And sure, you can adjust to things, but only to a certain degree. There is no reality in which I would be comfortable with 2500rpm fans in my PC - I have learnt that the hard way. The key is finding a balance that works for you, which necessarily includes cooling performance, noise, price, space, practicality, availability, and a heap of other factors. Where that balance lies is extremely subjective and context-dependent, but arguing for throwing out all considerations of noise and saying "you'll get used to it" is _not_ the way to go - _especially_ if you have tinnitus, as sustained humming/vibrating noises are known to exacerbate that.


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## TheUn4seen (Oct 22, 2021)

Valantar said:


> Sure, but alleviating that would be easy enough: put a huge orange/yellow sticker over the front of the heatsink saying "INSTALL FANS BEFORE USE" (like those "CONNECT YOUR DISPLAY CABLE TO THE DGPU, NOT THE IGPU" stickers on prebuilts) and make the BIOS throw an error on boot if nothing is connected to the fan headers (with some way of disabling this for water cooling, I guess).


I was in the consumer-facing market for a while, and I can tell you that if you put a large sticker on a product, consumers will complain that they have to peel it and will go out of their way to not read the warning. I was designing and selling custom lightning and the subcontractor who manufactured some fixtures put bright orange "REMOVE BEFORE USE" stickers on more delicate parts and connectors. I got a lot of calls from people who couldn't use a clearly labelled connector because "something is covering the whole area". When I politely asked them to read the f***ing label they were surprised they have to remove the "REMOVE BEFORE USE" label before use. Truly shocking.
My point is, many people think that paying for the product pardons them from using their brain. Such people are called "consumers" and it seems that it's the lowest intellectual grade a person can be.

A company could just put some cheap fans for the product to "just work" out of the box, but then some people would complain that the cheap included fans are loud and horrible. That's why companies prefer to glue the product shut and not let the consumer modify it in any way - people really can't be trusted to do things on their own. For every you and me who would know better than to leave a GPU with no fans, there are literally millions of consumers who are trained to think "that's how it came out of the box so that's how it should be".


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## Valantar (Oct 22, 2021)

TheUn4seen said:


> I was in the consumer-facing market for a while, and I can tell you that if you put a large sticker on a product, consumers will complain that they have to peel it and will go out of their way to not read the warning. I was designing and selling custom lightning and the subcontractor who manufactured some fixtures put bright orange "REMOVE BEFORE USE" stickers on more delicate parts and connectors. I got a lot of calls from people who couldn't use a clearly labelled connector because "something is covering the whole area". When I politely asked them to read the f***ing label they were surprised they have to remove the "REMOVE BEFORE USE" label before use. Truly shocking.
> My point is, many people think that paying for the product pardons them from using their brain. Such people are called "consumers" and it seems that it's the lowest intellectual grade a person can be.
> 
> A company could just put some cheap fans for the product to "just work" out of the box, but then some people would complain that the cheap included fans are loud and horrible. That's why companies prefer to glue the product shut and not let the consumer modify it in any way - people really can't be trusted to do things on their own. For every you and me who would know better than to leave a GPU with no fans, there are literally millions of consumers who are trained to think "that's how it came out of the box so that's how it should be".


You're not wrong, but you can't engineer yourself out of idiots being idiots. And a product like this should be clearly marketed towards enthusiasts. Heck, people RMA GPUs because they can't figure out how to connect power or have their display connectors hooked up to the iGPU. There's no solving this. So the additional risk from something like this would be relatively minimal - and I'd be more concerned with the e-waste from cheap bundled fans than anything else. Hence why i suggested partnering with literally any semi-reputable fan maker - at least then they could bundle some decent fans, but they don't have to be $25 Noctuas to be good. I would love to see, say, a Sapphire x Arctic collaboration.


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## TheUn4seen (Oct 22, 2021)

Valantar said:


> You're not wrong, but you can't engineer yourself out of idiots being idiots. And a product like this should be clearly marketed towards enthusiasts. Heck, people RMA GPUs because they can't figure out how to connect power or have their display connectors hooked up to the iGPU. There's no solving this. So the additional risk from something like this would be relatively minimal - and I'd be more concerned with the e-waste from cheap bundled fans than anything else. Hence why i suggested partnering with literally any semi-reputable fan maker - at least then they could bundle some decent fans, but they don't have to be $25 Noctuas to be good. I would love to see, say, a Sapphire x Arctic collaboration.


Idiots like to think they're not idiots. That's why the "pro" moniker is slapped on half of the cheap smartphones and other consumer trash. It makes people feel better about themselves and that, in turn, makes a product popular. For every actual enthusiast who will buy the product there will be countless morons with money who will buy it because they "feel" entitled to be called enthusiasts.
I agree that bundling reasonably good fans from the factory while retaining the upgrade/replacement path with standardized parts would probably be a safe middle ground for manufacturers and great for people who actually know what they're doing. That's why I was genuinely interested when the Noctua + Asus collaboration was announced. I hope manufacturers will take it further and come up with a truly standardized and modular approach to GPU cooling or bring it in line with existing standards.

Designing and 3D printing brackets for 80mm or 92mm fans and soldering connector adapters is part of the fun, yes, but sometimes I'd prefer to just get a good quality fan, screw it in, plug it and be happy with a better graphics card. A manufacturer which can deliver that would instantly jump near the top of my purchasing shortlist.


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## duynguyenle (Oct 22, 2021)

Valantar said:


> You're not wrong, but you can't engineer yourself out of idiots being idiots. And a product like this should be clearly marketed towards enthusiasts. Heck, people RMA GPUs because they can't figure out how to connect power or have their display connectors hooked up to the iGPU. There's no solving this. So the additional risk from something like this would be relatively minimal - and I'd be more concerned with the e-waste from cheap bundled fans than anything else. Hence why i suggested partnering with literally any semi-reputable fan maker - at least then they could bundle some decent fans, but they don't have to be $25 Noctuas to be good. I would love to see, say, a Sapphire x Arctic collaboration.


I understand your point, but I think I should also point out that Arctic, Corsair, Be Quiet etc... don't necessarily make their own fans, they're manufactured by a handful of OEMs like Delta, Sanyo Denki, Nidec, Sunon etc...

The original assumptions that you're basing your comment on is that GPU manufacturers' default fans are somehow garbage crap, and I don't necessarily agree with that, a lot of the time, they're good quality fans from large established OEMs (like the Sunon, Delta etc, as above). It's also not all that difficult to swap GPU fans, and some AIB partners make it easy to do so by having their fans clip-in to the GPU shroud with some sort of pin and pad interface, making fan replacement extra easy.

What I'd prefer is for GPU manufacturers to standardise on the mounting pattern, so that you have the option of changing out fans yourself. I don't think specifically partnering with 'named fan manufacturers' bring a lot of value to the table, because you're just paying more for a sticker that's slapped on top of Delta/Sunon/Sanyo fans etc etc


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## Valantar (Oct 22, 2021)

duynguyenle said:


> I understand your point, but I think I should also point out that Arctic, Corsair, Be Quiet etc... don't necessarily make their own fans, they're manufactured by a handful of OEMs like Delta, Sanyo Denki, Nidec, Sunon etc...
> 
> The original assumptions that you're basing your comment on is that GPU manufacturers' default fans are somehow garbage crap, and I don't necessarily agree with that, a lot of the time, they're good quality fans from large established OEMs (like the Sunon, Delta etc, as above). It's also not all that difficult to swap GPU fans, and some AIB partners make it easy to do so by having their fans clip-in to the GPU shroud with some sort of pin and pad interface, making fan replacement extra easy.
> 
> What I'd prefer is for GPU manufacturers to standardise on the mounting pattern, so that you have the option of changing out fans yourself. I don't think specifically partnering with 'named fan manufacturers' bring a lot of value to the table, because you're just paying more for a sticker that's slapped on top of Delta/Sunon/Sanyo fans etc etc


I'm perfectly aware of what you're saying, but you're seemingly purposely misunderstanding what is being said. This is an argument for making use of existing, established case/radiator fan designs on GPUs, not for having these brands make new fans for GPUs. What is the major difference? Size, thickness, and to some extent engineering effort. Most GPU fans are (variations on) stock designs from fan OEMs. Most case fans are as well, but the good ones are tuned and optimized more, and some are designed from scratch. Also, they are thicker, even in their slim variants - most gpu fans are 10mm thick or less - which has a significant effect, especially when faced with flow restriction from a dense fin stack. Even the best 10mm thick fan will struggle to overcome the resistance of a dense fin stack, as you simply don't have the depth for creating lots of static pressure at low noise levels, so using a 15mm fan instead is a good idea - but sadly gpu makers don't seem to have caught onto this, as their thicker cards mostly seem to still use woefully thin fans with fat heatsinks. People deshrouding their GPUs and fitting 92*14 or 120*15mm fans can attest to the improved performance and noise from this, even if 25mm thick fans are better still.

The main reason for partnering with a user-facing fan maker is the marketing opportunity, which is important for such a product to catch on. They could of course make a product very similar just by asking sunon/delta/whoever they are currently working with for a thicker fan design with standard case fan mounting holes. But partnering with someone like BQ, Arctic or Noctua allows for selling the gpu through implicitly saying "hey look, we really made an effort to make this good", rather than "this gpu is extra boxy and thick". And using standard fans will inevitably limit design freedom, so such marketing will be important for this to ever catch on.


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## duynguyenle (Oct 22, 2021)

Valantar said:


> I'm perfectly aware of what you're saying, but you're seemingly purposely misunderstanding what is being said. This is an argument for making use of existing, established case/radiator fan designs on GPUs, not for having these brands make new fans for GPUs. What is the major difference? Size, thickness, and to some extent engineering effort. Most GPU fans are (variations on) stock designs from fan OEMs. Most case fans are as well, but the good ones are tuned and optimized more, and some are designed from scratch. Also, they are thicker, even in their slim variants - most gpu fans are 10mm thick or less - which has a significant effect, especially when faced with flow restriction from a dense fin stack. Even the best 10mm thick fan will struggle to overcome the resistance of a dense fin stack, as you simply don't have the depth for creating lots of static pressure at low noise levels, so using a 15mm fan instead is a good idea - but sadly gpu makers don't seem to have caught onto this, as their thicker cards mostly seem to still use woefully thin fans with fat heatsinks. People deshrouding their GPUs and fitting 92*14 or 120*15mm fans can attest to the improved performance and noise from this, even if 25mm thick fans are better still.
> 
> The main reason for partnering with a user-facing fan maker is the marketing opportunity, which is important for such a product to catch on. They could of course make a product very similar just by asking sunon/delta/whoever they are currently working with for a thicker fan design with standard case fan mounting holes. But partnering with someone like BQ, Arctic or Noctua allows for selling the gpu through implicitly saying "hey look, we really made an effort to make this good", rather than "this gpu is extra boxy and thick". And using standard fans will inevitably limit design freedom, so such marketing will be important for this to ever catch on.


I understand the argument for using standardised fan mounts (notice the last sentence of my previous comment where I said I'd like standard fan firm factors), I'm not purposefully misrepresenting anything. I just don't see the point of paying extra for the brand, just having common form factors is a good enough marketing point in my view. Maybe you misunderstood my comment. Let me try and reword: having heatsinks use standard fan mounts = good, having extra Arctic/BQ/Noctua/Corsair etc branding on the GPU = not much additional value in my view. If I have the choice to use standardise fan mounting, I'd prefer making the choice on which fan brands I'd like to use myself

And also are you sure GPU fans are 10mm? I only have a single GPU in my possession right now, so I can't make any authoritative statements, but I was under the assumptions that most of them are 15mm thick. For what it's worth, my GPU have pretty thick fans


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## spixel (Oct 22, 2021)

Valantar said:


> That sounds like an unproductively all-or-nothing approach. Minimizing noise is about optimalization, not achieving perfection. As you say, removing all noise is impossible (and if you were able to do so you would be overwhelmed by the sound of your own circulatory system and organs, so, not recommended), but achieving a more comfortable environment is entirely possible. And sure, you can adjust to things, but only to a certain degree. There is no reality in which I would be comfortable with 2500rpm fans in my PC - I have learnt that the hard way. The key is finding a balance that works for you, which necessarily includes cooling performance, noise, price, space, practicality, availability, and a heap of other factors. Where that balance lies is extremely subjective and context-dependent, but arguing for throwing out all considerations of noise and saying "you'll get used to it" is _not_ the way to go - _especially_ if you have tinnitus, as sustained humming/vibrating noises are known to exacerbate that.


2,500 regular gpu fans I mean. (80 or 92mm?) . Yes they are 'loud' but again once you adjust its all the same. Noise should not be such a big deal on gpus as most of the time they'll only be spinning once you're gaming and by then you have gun blasts in your ears anyway.
People throw around the word 'silent' too easily, or like in this review, you have to put your ear directly to it to hear it. That is bogus. I tried this years ago to build a silent pc and wondered why a 'silent' gpu was making noise I could easily hear.
Someone said its silent because '23dB is well below most people’s noise floors.' Thats like when people used to say the eye can only see 60 hz yet now suddenly everyone wants 144hz screens.


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## 80-watt Hamster (Oct 22, 2021)

Valantar said:


> Yep, even 15mm thick standard fans would be great (and even 92mm fans, whether 25 or 14-15mm thick). The super-thin fans used on most GPUs are likely the reason why GPUs are typically so loud - trying to create enough static pressure to push air through a dense heatsink with 10mm or less thick fans is just going to be loud no matter what.
> 
> Just give us a bare heatsink with threaded holes for mounting and bundled screws for mounting and let us use whatever fans we want. Bonus points for mounting points for 3D printed baffles/shrouds for directing airflow. Or just partner with a semi-reputable fan maker - Be Quiet, Arctic, Nidec, Sunon, whatever. That would be amazing.



My take is that it's more down to the mass and thermal transfer capacity of the heatsink.  IME, fan speed doesn't contribute much above a certain threshold.  (Granted, these experiences aren't with high-end parts.)  For instance, on a typical CPU single-tower cooler with a fan that runs 700-2500 RPM, temps under load don't drop appreciably above about 1500 RPM.  On the modest dual-fan GPUs I've run, that value can be more like 1800-2000.  But I've never had a scenario where running the F on an HSF at full tilt has produced anything other than extra noise.  You're just chasing the diminishing returns at the far/wrong end of the efficiency curve at that point.


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## Valantar (Oct 22, 2021)

80-watt Hamster said:


> My take is that it's more down to the mass and thermal transfer capacity of the heatsink.  IME, fan speed doesn't contribute much above a certain threshold.  (Granted, these experiences aren't with high-end parts.)  For instance, on a typical CPU single-tower cooler with a fan that runs 700-2500 RPM, temps under load don't drop appreciably above about 1500 RPM.  On the modest dual-fan GPUs I've run, that value can be more like 1800-2000.  But I've never had a scenario where running the F on an HSF at full tilt has produced anything other than extra noise.  You're just chasing the diminishing returns at the far/wrong end of the efficiency curve at that point.


But that's the thing, a thinner fan necessarily needs to run faster to achieve the same static pressure as it simply doesn't have the room for the blade geometry to create that pressure otherwise. And the thicker your heatsink (assuming the same fin density), the more static pressure is needed to make air flow through it effectively, so a bigger heatsink with a too-thin fan risks being no improvement at all. The reasons why differences aren't massive is simply because most fans these days are quite okay, but assuming similarly competent designs and some flow restriction, a thicker fan will always provide more airflow, allowing for lower speed. Transfer capacity of the heatsink doesn't matter if there is no airflow to remove the heat, after all. You're right about diminising returns though - the balance between heat source temperature, heat source thermal energy output, heat sink transfer efficiency, heat sink area, and airflow through the heatsink gets pretty muddled once you get a decent amount of flow going, as at some point you start cooling the heat sink (and thus also source) to such a degree that transfer becomes somewhat less efficient - a higher thermal delta makes for easier thermal transfer, after all. So, ironically, having too good a cooler makes your cooler worse, in a way. This is also why huge honking air coolers generally don't _massively_ outperform smaller ones at low heat loads - there simply isn't enough energy to make them usefully hot, allowing the smaller heatsinks to dissipate heat more efficiently.


spixel said:


> 2,500 regular gpu fans I mean. (80 or 92mm?) . Yes they are 'loud' but again once you adjust its all the same. Noise should not be such a big deal on gpus as most of the time they'll only be spinning once you're gaming and by then you have gun blasts in your ears anyway.
> People throw around the word 'silent' too easily, or like in this review, you have to put your ear directly to it to hear it. That is bogus. I tried this years ago to build a silent pc and wondered why a 'silent' gpu was making noise I could easily hear.
> Someone said its silent because '23dB is well below most people’s noise floors.' Thats like when people used to say the eye can only see 60 hz yet now suddenly everyone wants 144hz screens.


You're right about the '23dB is well below most people's noise floors' thing. Noise adds up - it's all vibration energy in the air, after all - the question if it adds enough noise to be a noticeable increase. The log scale of dB(A) explains why a low number might not be audible, as 23dB might simply not be enough of an addition if your noise level is already sufficiently high. If your noise floor is 41dB then those 23dB represent something like a 1,6% increase in sound energy, while over a 32dB noise floor it's a 12,5% increase - much more likely to be noticeable. Of course that's a gross simplification that ignores the frequency spectrum entirely, but it goes some way towards explaining that misconception still. If there's lots of noise already, a little more isn't likely to be noticeable, and if it's very quiet, even the quietest fan will be audible, as it's adding _some_ noise.

In my case, I haven't had an air cooled GPU in my main PC since 2015, so I'm a bit out of touch (I do have a Sapphire RX 570 ITX in a secondary/travel PC though, but that PC is pretty noisy for other reasons), but to me any fan running above ~1500rpm starts getting audible-bordering-on-annoying - but that also depends a lot on the noise profile. My two Arctic P14 intake fans are very clearly audible at 100% (~1550rpm measured in Aquasuite), but not annoying at all thanks to their low-pitched and spread-out sound signature. They're on a level where they _never_ bother me despite my use of open-backed headphones. I also have just one fan running at idle (typically around 900-1000rpm), which makes the PC inaudible over outside traffic or wind noise from the vents in my home office - it blends perfectly into the background noise of the room. I used to have Gentle Typhoons on my previous 240mm radiator, but they were annoyingly grindy at idle, which got on my nerves over time. Switched to some Silent Wings 3s, which were nicely quiet, but didn't deliver on performance (1400rpm 120mm fans just wasn't enough). These P14s are noisier at full tilt, but the pleasant frequency spread makes that a non-issue.

As for 2500rpm fans ... well, the NH-L9i in that travel PC gets plenty loud, and that's one of the quieter slim 92mm fans on the market. There might be GPU fans of the same diameter that make less noise, but they would also push less air, which would mean an NF-A9x14 in the same place could most likely run quieter while delivering the same performance. Either way, no 2500rpm fan is acceptable for long-term use for me - I could never get used to that type of noise, and I can say from experience that those kinds of droning noises makes tinnitus much, much worse. Mine is typically unnoticeable, but long-term exposure to loud fans makes it quite annoying.


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