Blower vs aftermarket cooling OC capability?

[Virtual01]

Wondering about how much of a difference one might see from overclocking the same card with a blower cooler vs an open air fan cooler. Is there a significant difference in max OC between the two?

[Dietrichw]

depends on how loud you want it to be.

 

If noise isn't an issue you can overclock just fine with a blower cooler.

[Toddwjp]

depends on the case.

 

usually blower is worse for overclocking and after market open coolers are better

[WereCat]

Depends on your luck with silicon lotery. But aftermarket cooler will sure help you cool the GPU a lot better thus increasing the chance of higher overclock.

[Mattrixx]

Wondering about how much of a difference one might see from overclocking the same card with a blower cooler vs an open air fan cooler. Is there a significant difference in max OC between the two?

Depends on the card. If you're getting a beast of a GPU, you'll definitely want an aftermarket cooler. Just take a look at the 290x blower temps! If you're just getting something efficient like a 960 though, you might not even notice that much more OC-ing potential with a blower style cooler, as the card doesn't pump out that much heat as it is.

[f5alcon]

To get a max OC, water is the only way to go. 

[iamdarkyoshi]

If you have open air style cards in crossfire/sli, any deecent cooling is hopeless as the cards just recirculate each other's exhaust where the blower cards exhaust out of the back of the pc.

[Bananasplit_00]

To get a max OC, water is the only way to go. 

or phase change 

[f5alcon]

or phase change 

That is true, but I don't know of any phase change GPU blocks off the top of my head and typically the GPU OC limit is hit well before the temp limit on water. I am at a 1570 boost on my 970 and only hitting 45C on water. 

[Aphala]

Blower if you plan to stay factory clock with 2+ Crossfire/SLI or are using a small case with CF / SLI.

 

Aftermarket cards are generally better if you have 1 / 2 cards and they have superior cooling so go for Aftermarket

[Bananasplit_00]

That is true, but I don't know of any phase change GPU blocks off the top of my head and typically the GPU OC limit is hit well before the temp limit on water. I am at a 1570 boost on my 970 and only hitting 45C on water. 

thats when you getho rig a phase change cpu cooler to your gpu

[StealthArsenal]

I was actually wondering which was better myself.  I was using blower design with my old EVGA GTX 670 Ftw's in sli with an overclock.  Now I am running EVGA GTX 970 FTW+ ACX 2.0 in SLI with an overclock.  I notice my lower card is always about 7-9 degrees warmer than the top card.  Since I am going to grab 980ti's, I was considering going back to blower style.

 

Thoughts.    Thinking of clocking up at least to 1300 mhz if not higher.