So what do consumer reviews mean when they say a card “isn’t a blower” yet it has fans on it? I’m confused.
Blower cards are the ones that have a channel blowing the air out the back-pane of the computer. The fan sucks warm case air in, cools the GPU’s heatsink with it, and exhausts it outside of the case. The reference 1080 FE cards, for example, are blowers (as are the new AMD ones I believe).
The original blower (at least the first one I can recall) was the Nvidia FX 5800 Ultra, the card that actually sounded like a leaf blower.
edit: Apparently not the first blower after all – those honors may go to HIS for their aftermarket Radeon cards around 2006: https://techbuyersguru.com/video-card-comparison-blower-style-vs-open-air-coolers
Yep, blower cards tend to be much less effective coolers and louder, but they have the distinct advantage of exhausting all the hot air out of your case, so they are useful in poorly-cooled cases such as very small HTPCs.
If you have a gaming PC that isn’t space-constrained, you don’t want a blower fan.
Hmm, now I’m wondering if my current MSI GTX 970 (a Twin Frozer model) does that. As I recall it has a small set of what I assume are exhaust slots. My case is a Fractal Design Define R5.
No, that isn’t a blower. You’re good.
Would giving the GPU its own ducting not be helpful?
Sure. Question is if it’s worth the effort. (And the answer is generally, no.)
I used HiS blowers for a good while in the iceQ series, but they aren’t making that style anymore (at least not in the US). That’s one of the reasons I switched to nVidia and bought an FE.
I think that depends on case air flow. Probably true in most cases where you have good air flow. There are exceptions, like my Silverstone FT-02, which has a rotated motherboard with the end of the slot at the top. It’s designed for gpus w/ blower fans.
Next time I do a complete build, I will probably opt for a smaller case, but I have loved the heck out of this one.
And if you have a blower, don’t forget our own wumpus’ dremel technique for opening up the air flow by taking half the backplate off the board.
And now we know why you’d want holes in your monitor too… heat dissipation.
I’ve got tons of good sources for cheap video games and good components, are there any sites out there that track deals on decent prebuilt configurations, like ASUS, MSI, Alienware 1070 level boxes?
reddit.com/r/bapcsales for US components (includes prebuilt gaming systems) and reddit.com/r/bapcsalescanada
or techbargains/slickdeals
Yeah I have a ton of alerts set at Slickdeals and am subbed to half a dozen Reddit subs, but none of them seem to find many complete system bargains
Damn. Now I own a 1080Ti FE.
Congrats! You will enjoy it.
Family member won it free in a contest and I bought it off them for 300!
Damn. I gotta get more family members to enter contests, I guess! Have fun with it.
I will gladly sell you several of my family members for much less than $300.
Hmm, not much different from my non-TI 1080 especially since I got rid of the 4K 60hz GSYNC monitor and am just using a single 144hz GSYNC now at 2560x1440.
I guess it’s time to 2x SSAA ALL THE GAMES.
Oh I guess I can do 60fps at Ultra in Forza Horizon 3 now and 30fps in Quantum Break.