Why no one makes triple slot blower coolers?

[RejZoR]

I was just wondering, why no one creates a triple slot blower coolers? We can all agree on the fact that blower coolers are good because they blow all the heat directly out of the case, not affecting other components. However, due to nature of design, blower coolers are inherently limited in cooling capacity and quiet operation because they are always slimmer. Why has no one combined the benefits of blower exhaust with a beefier, thicker blower coolers? Most people run single card anyway, but you only have an option of a noisy dual slot blowers or the triple slot coolers that dump all the heat into the case.

Why not a middle of the road option with beefier blower that still exhausts all the hot air outside? This way you have cooler case internals, lower noise and yet still excellent cooling. In blower format cooler. I know I'd most likely prefer that over anything else if it even existed...

 

[OneMoar]

because blowers are loud,bulky and use a fair bit of power
and triple slot cards in general are dead?

 

[Vayra86]

I see some disadvantages really

- You're still tied to one radial fan, all you can do is making it a bit longer/go deeper, but I doubt it will move that much more air because you're still sucking it in from the same surface area
- Triple slot cooling aren't exactly best sellers and present issues in the case
- The niche and trendy form factor is ITX. There is no niche for oversized cooling solutions, its just a bit of epeen with no tangible benefit thus far. Point me towards 2.5 or triple slot coolers that do consistently better than 2 slotters. There's no consistency to be found there. Good cooling depends on much more than how many slots it needs. Heck we even have ITX 1070's and single slot 1070's out.
- In any triple slot solution you lose efficient use of the cooling fins too, because the topside of the card will be moving air of a lower temperature, ie being quite useless compared to the fins closer to the die.
- Weight. Its not a problem already to make a very hefty 2 slotter. Imagine what a 3 slotter will do if you really want to push it to the max.

- The market for good blower setups is precisely SLI/Crossfire... and triple slotters don't really match that too well.
- There has not ever been a blower that performed better than an open air. Even in SLI its highly debatable. The hot air you DO dump inside the case with a blower, is just radiated off the backplates anyway, and those don't get a whole lot of airflow.

So... I get it.

 

[EarthDog]

Because, nobody wants a milk carton in their rig? Good question...

That said, i dont think a bigger blower will lower noise much if at all...

 

[thebluebumblebee]

IMHO, that sounds like a good idea, however, I don't think you've come up with a new idea. I'd think, with the myriad of cooler designs that we see/have seen, most likely someone has already tried this, and I'd expect that there were so little benefits that it was decided against.

and triple slot cards in general are dead?

With multi-GPU dying, I wouldn't be surprised to see a resurgence of >2 slot coolers. Think about all the space for RGB lights!

 

[Vayra86]

The purpose of blowers primarily is for OEMs and a high foolproof factor. You really can't destroy the fan all too easily and the whole cooling solution is less susceptible to dust.

Blowers were never meant for performance, but for dummies

 

[RejZoR]

But everyone is killing off multi-GPU solutions anyway.

I was also thinking of angled dual/triple fan coolers where fans are angled towards the back of the case so that they'd be pushing hot air out of the case using normal fans and not with a blower.

 

[Vayra86]

But everyone is killing off multi-GPU solutions anyway.

I was also thinking of angled dual/triple fan coolers where fans are angled towards the back of the case so that they'd be pushing hot air out of the case using normal fans and not with a blower.

You gotta think this through abit... angled fans = less surface area for fins = lost cooling potential too.

There's a good reason we have primarily 2 slot open airs, and that's because they hit a sweet spot for all of the aspects that make a cooler effective. Air cooling just caps out at some point, you can increase fan speed at will but you barely gain lower temps. In the end its the ambient temp that limits the air cooler even if it can dissipate enough.

 

[ZenZimZaliben]

Mass of the heatsink is pretty much the reason. The only thing you could do is make the plastic air flow channel larger. This wouldn't give you more cooling, because you have the same surface area. You could achieve the same results with a higher RPM fan on a dual slot style.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Plus slot access for other peripherals? The more space a cooler takes up, the less available slots you have, why would anyone buy an expensive high end board and then limit connectivity...... even a little? Or in fact buy a low end board with limited connectivity and block the lot!

 

[RejZoR]

Because none of the WindForce/GamingX/Strix/Nitro/Younameit coolers does that, right? Except they all dump ALL the heat in the case. Am I really the only one who remembers blower coolers with heatpipes? C'mon, I'm not that old... Why not just make that tiny bit thicker for more surface area and heatpipes to pump more heat into larger surface area?

 

[Tatty_Two]

Because none of the WindForce/GamingX/Strix/Nitro/Younameit coolers does that, right? Except they all dump ALL the heat in the case. Am I really the only one who remembers blower coolers with heatpipes? C'mon, I'm not that old... Why not just make that tiny bit thicker for more surface area and heatpipes to pump more heat into larger surface area?

Ahhhhhh right, so you actually mean like my cooler (Vapor-X) which has heatpipes and does not drop all the heat into the case, but mine is a 2 slot cooler. So at a guess, the answer to your question is likely cost, the Nitro coolers for example certainly look cheaper.

 

[BiggieShady]

Am I really the only one who remembers blower coolers with heatpipes?

Radeon 2900 XT comes to mind ... again two slots

 

[RejZoR]

I remember HIS had IceQ ones with heatpipes sticking out on the sides. Now, amp that to 3 slot thickness with larger centrifugal fan. I mean, there, you'd be reaching fin surface area close to the ones with normal 2 or 3 fan heatsinks that dump all the heat into the case. And everyone dropping multicard configs, this would actually make a lot of sense. I know it would solve quite some temperature problems in many cases (cases as in PC enclosures and also otherwise, pun intended ).
I know I'd seriously consider it. The blower idea is actually awesome, it's just that they always go with slim design and all of them end up being crap because they are then obnoxiously loud. But if you make them quieter by enlarging them, you solve the noise issue and you help entire system to remain cool. Where with heat dumping inside of the case, you're burdening motherboard with heat as well as everything inside the case, you need more and better case fans etc.

 

[R-T-B]

Point me towards 2.5 or triple slot coolers that do consistently better than 2 slotters.

The Arctic Cooling series I am presently using on my Titan X pretty consistently blows away OEM coolers, but good god is it massive.

 

[R00kie]

My HD5870 actually had heatpipes on the heatsink itself.

But I'm pretty sure you mean this:

 

[jboydgolfer]

i love my Ref 970's, the blowers are top notch, and based on comparisons to other Shrouds, and H/S's the cooling Perf is in the top 10 or lower. its 20C ambient right now ,and My 970 is 28C

why there are no tripl3 slot blowers? IMO maybe it looses effective cooling capability when wider than 1 or 2 slots?

 

[cdawall]

Why do they need heatpipes? The good reference carda have a vaporchamber on them.

 

[niko084]

I don't think there is much need.
My case has decent airflow and my GPU fans on my 1070 only occasionally turn on while gaming, it was the same with my 970.
Now previous to that my crossfire R9-270Xs, the fans on those would stay on while gaming but stayed slow.

There is the argument for better cooling when overclocking but water cooling is more widespread than overclocking and is vastly superior.

We could get into longevity with the weight of the card, manufacturing, shipping costs...
Lastly it doesn't take much to stop static hot air pockets from forming in at least most cases.
You can test your systems ability to circulate air with a smoke machine.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

You're still tied to one radial fan, all you can do is making it a bit longer/go deeper, but I doubt it will move that much more air because you're still sucking it in from the same surface area

This is number one I'd think. The most limiting factor should be the diameter of the fan, you'd probably be better off making the board/heatsink wider.

Why do they need heatpipes? The good reference carda have a vaporchamber on them.

Heatpipes should be able move heat further than a vapour chamber as the latter is limited to a certain area. If you need a small heatsink like you find on the reference cards, vapour chamber is perfect.

 

[Vya Domus]

With the last few generations cooling has started to become less and less important since GPUs are engineered to pretty much run as fast as possible even on reference coolers. I mean look at all the Pascal line , even a Titan Xp can run at 2Ghz on the stock cooler , at the cost of silence sure , but it can. There was a time when you simply couldn't get the best out of a card without putting some serious cooling on it. Remember the GTX295 ? Only way you could realistically OC it and not having it on the brink of death was to water cool it , reference blower cooler wasn't cutting it.

Btw , there are blower coolers with heatpipes even today , I think Gigabyte uses them. However heatpipes with this design are not going to work very efficiently. The purpose of heatpipes is to have one end at lower temp , the bigger the gap in temperature the better the cooling. This sort of enclosure makes it so that most of the heatsink has the same temperature anyway.

water cooling is more widespread than overclocking and is vastly superior.

What ? You mean people water cool their cards more often that OCing them ?

 

[AsRock]

Because, nobody wants a milk carton in their rig? Good question...

That said, i dont think a bigger blower will lower noise much if at all...

Well you just end up with a leaf blower.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

>Straps leaf blower to heatsink...