Noctua RTX 3070 vs Redneck Engineering My Own

[James]

Buy Noctua Fans
On Amazon (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/m0hAVB
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Buy RTX 3070
On Amazon (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/qpZA
On Best Buy (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/dmSqs
On Newegg (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/yXWtJC

 

Noctua and ASUS have finally collaborated to bring us an RTX 3070 with Noctua fans and owl stylings on the shroud. But does it perform cooler or quieter than a regular GPU with NF-A12s duct taped to it?

 

 

 

[HenrySalayne]

The Noctua edition has a slightly larger heatsink than the TUF gaming. It's subtle but it's there.

[Ubersonic]

I did this to a card a few years back, instead of connecting the fans to the motherboard you can actually get a mini 4pin (GPU fan header) to regular 4pin fan adapter to plug into the card then combine that with a 4pin to Molex/SATA cable with PWM breakout (basically means the fans take power from Molex/SATA but get their PWM signal from the GPU so your afterburner curves work perfectly, and the fans don't draw any GPU board power).

[jones177]

I think all the 3070s and above need this type of solution.

The traditional cools are not doing the job.

[adastorm]

Is it just me, or is the new video missing the introduction with the music? Just making sure i'm not going crazy.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Nope, I  think I missed it

[swimtome]

I just want to know what dogs @James have seen together...

[Luscious]

When the big boy 3090Ti comes out I want to see you guys strap on a pair of those 38mm thick finger-chopping 5500RPM DELTA fans on there for some "ample cooling"

 

This really highlights how ANTIQUATED the ATX spec has become, because back in the 90's when this was introduced you rarely even had 2 slot cards let alone FOUR. Now you have cards hitting length and height limits in addition that don't even fit into many cases. ATX has reached it's end of life. There really needs to be a better way to get (multiple) graphics cards into a PC and be able to keep them cool. And that last part really is the key since card sizes, power requirements and thermals have shot through the roof especially the last 5 years.

 

Even the CPU spacing on mobos is becoming problematic with RAM slot and VRM placement a delicate balance, and all because the ATX spec doesn't allow for more room around the CPU socket. We're no longer in the days of Pentium!!! Need a case that can fit 2 power supplies? Good luck LOL

 

Adopting water cooling really is the only way to go here. Yeah, you could space the cards apart with risers but then you introduce signal degradation and power delivery issues. Those 4U GPU servers you see stuffed with 10 double-slot GPU's inside use forced air cooling with fans both in front and out back to move all the air needed to keep the boards from literally melting. That's fine in a server room where noise and dust isn't a problem and you have hot+cold aisles. Not so good in a home environment where people are living.

[Shimejii]

3 hours ago, jones177 said:

I think all the 3070s and above need this type of solution.

The traditional cools are not doing the job.

Most do the job just fine. Do you want MSRP cards? Thats what you get, do you want a cooler thats much better but costs around 3x as much to make? You get this one which on average costs 100$ more. Pricies are still wonky for GPUS, but Coolers are a tricky thing.

[jones177]

2 hours ago, Shimejii said:

Most do the job just fine. Do you want MSRP cards? Thats what you get, do you want a cooler thats much better but costs around 3x as much to make? You get this one which on average costs 100$ more. Pricies are still wonky for GPUS, but Coolers are a tricky thing.

Not the ones I have tested.

 

I have a ASUS Rog Stix 3080 White OC.  It is the coolest 30 series card I have.  At stock under load it uses 370 watts and that is 2 watts less than my EVGA FTW3 Ultra 2080 ti used with a its maximum overclock. The 2080 ti had the fans at 100% with that overclock.

The Strix 3080 uses 450 watts overclocked and the glass had to come off the case to run the overclock for any length of time.

It is now in a Corsair 5000d with 10 fans so it is nice and cool. 

 

I also have a EVGA FTW3 Ultra 3080 ti. It is the hottest card I have since at stock under load it uses 400 watts and 450 watts overclocked. At stock running a game it is at 82c with the same case I could run an overclocked 2080 ti at 71c. It will be paired with my 5800x but in a new much cooler case.

 

The other three cards I bought fall in between these two when it comes to cooling.

The one I thought I would have the most trouble was the 3090 but luckily It is a MSI Gaming X Trio. They have heat pipes on the backplate so the vram temps are the same as the 3080 ti version that only has vram on the front of the card.  I am now a big fan of MSI. 

 

Back in 2018 when I had to add a fan or two to my cases going from GTX 1080 tis to RTX 2080 tis I figured I would need hybrid cards for the 30 series if the cards got any hotter. So at launch I auto notified for only hybrid cards(3090s) but as the months past I auto notified for all the cards. I never got a hybrid and in the end I got what I could get and not what I wanted.

 

 

[Shimejii]

1 minute ago, jones177 said:

Not the ones I have tested.

 

I have a ASUS Rog Stix 3080 White OC.  It is the coolest 30 series card I have.  At stock under load it uses 370 watts and that is 2 watts less than my EVGA FTW3 Ultra 2080 ti used with a its maximum overclock. The 2080 ti had the fans at 100% with that overclock.

The Strix 3080 uses 450 watts overclocked and the glass had to come off the case to run the overclock for any length of time.

It is now in a Corsair 5000d with 10 fans so it is nice and cool. 

 

I also have a EVGA FTW3 Ultra 3080 ti. It is the hottest card I have since at stock under load it uses 400 watts and 450 watts overclocked. At stock running a game it is at 82c with the same case I could run an overclocked 2080 ti at 71c. It will be paired with my 5800x but in a new much cooler case.

 

The other three cards I bought fall in between these two when it comes to cooling.

The one I thought I would have the most trouble was the 3090 but luckily It is a MSI Gaming X Trio. They have heat pipes on the backplate so the vram temps are the same as the 3080 ti version that only has vram on the front of the card.  I am now a big fan of MSI. 

 

Back in 2018 when I had to add a fan or two to my cases going from GTX 1080 tis to RTX 2080 tis I figured I would need hybrid cards for the 30 series if the cards got any hotter. So at launch I auto notified for only hybrid cards(3090s) but as the months past I auto notified for all the cards. I never got a hybrid and in the end I got what I could get and not what I wanted.

 

 

Im gonna be honest, EVGA cards are Built pretty great usually, but Their coolers are AWFUL. Ive had quite a few EVGA cards from peps ive had to help and they had the 3rd highest failure rate next to Gigabyte and Zotac. 

 

MSI Actually makes pretty great GPUS, ive had their 980TI 6G and their 1080ti Duke, both have been quite nice thermally.  

 

Anything under 85Celsius is usually fine and within spec, i Prefer my gpu under 75C just because of noise output so i prefer a slightly thicker Heatsink and fan setup but if you have a good deal on a GPU i cant blame someone for buying it. 

[jones177]

10 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

Im gonna be honest, EVGA cards are Built pretty great usually, but Their coolers are AWFUL. Ive had quite a few EVGA cards from peps ive had to help and they had the 3rd highest failure rate next to Gigabyte and Zotac. 

 

MSI Actually makes pretty great GPUS, ive had their 980TI 6G and their 1080ti Duke, both have been quite nice thermally.  

The coolers on my 3 slot FTW3 Ultra 2080 tis were fine but my XC card was hot with a 2 slot, 2 fan design.  

 

My GTX 980 tis and 1080 tis were EVGA and I had no heat issues with them. Heat only became a problem with the EVGA XC 2080 ti. 

 

I have had to RMA 2 EVGA cards. The first was a 8800 GTS and the second was one of my GTX 980 tis I had in SLI. That is two out of 18 so 1 in 9. 

10 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

Anything under 85Celsius is usually fine and within spec, i Prefer my gpu under 75C just because of noise output so i prefer a slightly thicker Heatsink and fan setup but if you have a good deal on a GPU i cant blame someone for buying it. 

 At 83c all my 30 series cards throttle without raising the power limit. On the 2080 ti it was 84c. My EVGA 9 and 10 series had a 83c limit as well but they never got close.

 

I prefer my cards at around 71c so I can overclock to 75c but all the cards have been in the 80s out of the box except for the Strix.  I have added more fans to existing cases but have also bought two new cases that use bottom intake so air flows past the GPUs and is drawn out the top of the case. In tests they are about 10c cooler on the GPU than traditional front intake cases that I have.

 

I am winning for now but the 40 series is rumored to be even hotter so it is going to be fun.

[dogwitch]

11 hours ago, swimtome said:

I just want to know what dogs @James have seen together...

he did such a dad joke. linus walk away.....

 

[Jeppes]

19 hours ago, Shimejii said:

Most do the job just fine. Do you want MSRP cards? Thats what you get, do you want a cooler thats much better but costs around 3x as much to make? You get this one which on average costs 100$ more. Pricies are still wonky for GPUS, but Coolers are a tricky thing.

You can upgrade pretty much any cooler with 2x Arctic p12 fans for about 12-13€. It would cost even less to the manufacturer to get that 10C improvement noise normalized or significant reduction in noise with same temps.

19 hours ago, Luscious said:

When the big boy 3090Ti comes out I want to see you guys strap on a pair of those 38mm thick finger-chopping 5500RPM DELTA fans on there for some "ample cooling"

 

It would be nice to see a card using 140mm fans. Should be nice tight fit into cases that can house common 16cm tall cpu coolers. But that kind of heatsink would probably need some support

[xnamkcor]

80mm should be fine.

[Ubersonic]

On 10/28/2021 at 10:15 PM, Luscious said:

This really highlights how ANTIQUATED the ATX spec has become, because back in the 90's when this was introduced you rarely even had 2 slot cards let alone FOUR. Now you have cards hitting length and height limits in addition that don't even fit into many cases. ATX has reached it's end of life. There really needs to be a better way to get (multiple) graphics cards into a PC and be able to keep them cool. And that last part really is the key since card sizes, power requirements and thermals have shot through the roof especially the last 5 years.

I agree with most of your points but there a a couple of key things worth mentioning.

 

Firstly, cards not fitting into cases is not a problem with the ATX spec it's a problem with case manufacturers selling cases that don't conform to the ATX spec properly (and also with people trying to put full size ATX components into MATX cases).  If you cast your mind back to the 90's you will also remember that many sound cards and modems were even longer than high end GPUs are today, so length issues have nothing to do with the ATX spec.  In fact if a manufacturer ever produced a full ATX length GPU and somebody put it into a full size ATX case then there would be zero sagging issues as full length cards clip in at both ends, this is why blower style reference cards had those screw holes in the end, so you could bolt on the retainer that slotted into a case if it had the ATX slots (as most workstation grade cases still do).

 

Secondly, sadly due to the death of Xfire/SLi motherboard manufacturers don't really take into account the idea of somebody putting more than one GPU in a system anymore when they design their consumer board layouts.  They would much rather use that space for M.2 slots that a customer is actually likely to want.

[Luscious]

7 hours ago, Ubersonic said:

I agree with most of your points but there a a couple of key things worth mentioning.

 

Firstly, cards not fitting into cases is not a problem with the ATX spec it's a problem with case manufacturers selling cases that don't conform to the ATX spec properly (and also with people trying to put full size ATX components into MATX cases).  If you cast your mind back to the 90's you will also remember that many sound cards and modems were even longer than high end GPUs are today, so length issues have nothing to do with the ATX spec.  In fact if a manufacturer ever produced a full ATX length GPU and somebody put it into a full size ATX case then there would be zero sagging issues as full length cards clip in at both ends, this is why blower style reference cards had those screw holes in the end, so you could bolt on the retainer that slotted into a case if it had the ATX slots (as most workstation grade cases still do).

 

Secondly, sadly due to the death of Xfire/SLi motherboard manufacturers don't really take into account the idea of somebody putting more than one GPU in a system anymore when they design their consumer board layouts.  They would much rather use that space for M.2 slots that a customer is actually likely to want.

That takes me WAAAY back - I had an old AT tower case with those card retention slots on the front where you would normally fit a fan today. What was laughable about that full tower case was that it didn't even have one single fan intake mount or an exhaust fan on it. I remember having to jerry rig a spare PSU fan (the only way you could get 12V 120mm fans back then) onto the exhaust port of the case and running the bare wires to a hacked molex. But that was probably almost 30 years ago. Times really have changed.

 

Your multi GPU argument may be right but I don't necessarily agree with - more than one high end board today still gives you the four slots needed to run a 4-way setup. You won't be running the four cards together (xfire/SLI) but they can still run independent. In my case I would use it for F@H or transcoding work while keeping the main card free for monitor duties or even game and fold at the same time, something that I still do today. I'm guessing for miners it would be a similar deal. Depending on your display(s) heavy multi monitor setups can also run into bandwidth limits making second GPU a necessity - an argument for many workstation deployments where the additional cards can do double duty in number crunching. True, this falls outside consumer gear, but folks that need it will still look for it when shopping high-end.