Blower vs. Open Air GPU Coolers - My experience

[Mick Naughty]

Spent the last few days doing tests between my refernce coolers and my acx open air coolers.

Alot of people make the debate about which to use, such as if your case has bad airflow use a blower and if it has decent cooling go for an open air.

Same when using sli/crossfire. There are alot more varibles when it comes to that, I'm just going off of my rig which in most cases would yield the same results.

 

 

 

Current Set up

• Asus Z77

• I7 3770K (running of an xmp profile)

• 32gb Gskill Ares

• OCZ 1000 watt psu

• 2x Titan SC (stock clocks)

• H100i (stock fans)

• 3x Acer GD235hz

• Corsair 540 Intake fans- 3x NF-12's, Exhaust - stock corsair 140 and H100i

　

 

Single GPU tests

 

So I ran all fans at max speed as a control and room temp was kept at 75°f

Battle Field 4 High settings 5760x1080 @ 120hz

Lowest frame rate - 54

Highest frame rate - 76

Average - 65 (the number everyone likes for some reason)

 

 

Results

One card- stock cooler max temp 56°c

One card- ACX cooler max temp 56°c

 

 

SLI

Stock coolers- top 65°c bottom 59°c

ACX coolers - top 68°c bottom 56°c

With using the open air coolers my cpu temps went up around 5-10°c but, they were a bit quieter and I mean a bit.

They also have much better idle temps espcialy in sli.

acx 29°c

stock 35ish

 

Conclusion

I know I have a case thats supposed to be designed for air flow. With the stock fans in the case these results would be completely different. I dont care about noise, as I am a gamer and use a headset. They both look appealing but the ref cooler do look way better.

I know alot of people ask this question between the different cooler. It all depends on the setup. A lot of people just throw out an opinion based on a video or some blog, not acutally dealing with it themselves. I know people dont have the money to try every option either.

[Mick Naughty]

Would also consider doing single gpu oc'ed results. The bois also unlocks them to 120% power. Incase anyone is interested, as I haven't switched the other gpu back to the stock cooler yet.

[LogicalDrm]

There's also much debate on how sidepanel fan will effect on temps. Should it be used at all, or as intake rather than exhaust. If you could be able to test that too, it would be great.

[Mick Naughty]

I want to replace the 140 exhaust fan with something better. Tomorrow I have 4 new 2k rpm fans showing up. I could fab up a side panel and give it a go, wont look pretty though.

[spwath]

Do those little heatsinks help? (On GPU back)

[Mick Naughty]

Do those little heatsinks help? (On GPU back)

 

Well as those don't directly get monitored like the gpu, I cant say for a fact. But seeing in how on all gpus the vram is normally cooled some how, so why not the rest of it? That's was my thinking anyway. If you were to touch them while gaming or under load, you can tell they get very hot. They only help if the hot air is getting pushed or pulled away. So its piece of mind more for me.