Thursday, June 9th 2022
Soonfoals the Latest AMD Radeon Add-in Board Partner
The ecosystem of AMD AIBs (add-in board partners) increased this month, when Chinese consumer electronics company Weijian International launched the Soonfoals brand of AMD Radeon graphics cards. The name purportedly indicates fast-moving foals (young horses). From the looks of it, Soonfoals will focus on entry-mainstream SKUs, with its current lineup including cards based on the Radeon RX 6650 XT, RX 6600, RX 6500 XT, and RX 6400. Products include a single-slot, low-profile card based on the RX 6400, and dual-slot, dual-fan cards based on the other GPUs, including a premium-looking brand extension called "Lightning," denoting factory-overclocked RX 6650 XT and RX 6600 cards. From the looks of it, Soonfoals will look to grow locally in the Chinese market first.
Source:
VideoCardz
18 Comments on Soonfoals the Latest AMD Radeon Add-in Board Partner
XFX, Sapphire, Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, Powercolour, and Asrock all make some ridiculously ugly, oversize cards that don't fit well in smaller cases because they just re-use the massive coolers from their higher-end models and instead cheap out on backplates and secondary heatsinks for RAM/VRMs.
If Soonfoals only make lower-end cards hopefully they'll only make appropriate coolers for them too.
There are even enough regular ATX cases that suffer the same issue. If your case doesn't have clearance for a tall CPU tower clearance (and there are loads of mATX and ATX cases that fit that bill) then you will also struggle to properly cool a GPU that's 140mm+ tall
Here's a completely typical 6600XT (the cheapest and by no means the largest one on the market, but similar in size to several ASUS, Gigabyte, and Powercolor models):
Hot air exhausts out of the top and bottom edge of the card. The air coming out of the bottom is hindered by the motherboard and slot itself, forcing hot air to just get recirculated back into the fans again, so the top edge does the lion's share of the actual cooling. If your case only has clearance for CPU tower coolers under 148mm, for example, that leaves a pathetic 8mm of breathing room for a set of fins that are 20-30mm deep, and your cooling will suffer as a result, netting you higher fan RPM, increased GPU temperatures, and more fan noise. You'd want a case that claims compatibilty with 160mm tower coolers to not completely choke a 140mm-tall GPU like the MSI Mech card pictured about.
150mm max CPU clearance is pretty common for cases with the word "compact" in their name, and plenty of HTPC cases from Silverstone and Fractal don't even accomodate GPUs over 130mm tall. I use a particularly restrictive Silverstone GD05 that barely squeezes 115mm cards in - it was designed with reference blowers in mind and really struggles with large, open coolers that are prevalent today even at the low-end.
Problem is with most cases it's not the gpu's but the case design themselfs. I'm pretty sure very small itx don't have TG, and they could easily give the gpu some breathing room. Most of them being designed years ago with blowers in mind, something that's basically dead. Modern ITX cases (H1, meshilicious, NR200, etc) can all easily fit these more modern gpu's. Funnily enough, the 3050/6500 xt models come with a much smaller height, as their tdp is much lower, which in my mind is actually the kind of card to use in tiny chassis'.
I would say pick gpu's carefully, as for example the much shorter eagle (2 & 3 fan) 6600xt's also exist, and they would fit much better as they are more like 110-120mm tall. My best take from this is really to just pick gpu's carefully, and perhaps drill a few holes in the case or get a newer case more focused on modern gpu cooling.
Seems applicable.