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Passively Cooling Nvidia's GeForce GTX 750 Ti...With An AMD Sink

Passively Cooling Nvidia's GeForce GTX 750 Ti...With An AMD Sink
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We couldn't resist going where no man had before (or where no board partner could in time for Nvidia's launch): building a passively-cooled GeForce GTX 750 Ti. In the end, it took a bit of customization, since there aren't any compatible coolers yet.

First, I have to apologize to both Nvidia and Sapphire. On one hand, I'm about to build something from Nvidia that doesn't exist yet (and might not any time soon, according to the board partners). On the other, I'm going to sacrifice one of Sapphire's cards to get the spare parts I need for the project. But resistance is futile. I have a 60 W GPU in-hand. I have to see if it'll operate stably without active cooling.

The foundation I'm starting with is Nvidia's reference GeForce GTX 750 Ti. In the event you missed our launch coverage, check out GeForce GTX 750 Ti Review: Maxwell Adds Performance Using Less Power.

In the end, we're going to be talking about the reference board with a passive heat sink, the kind you typically see on Radeon HD 7750 and R7 250s.

On paper, the match-up should be pretty close; those cards are fairly similar in their power consumption. But will our contraption work? There are more variables than just power to consider. For example, the Maxwell GPU has a smaller surface area than AMD's Cape Verde. Furthermore, Nvidia ensured that none of the current thermal solutions fit by changing the distance between the screw holes. Mainstream GeForce PCBs typically measure 53.2 x 53.2 mm or 58.4 x 58.4 mm, while Radeon cards are either 53.2 x 53.2 mm or 43 x 43 mm. It only follows, then, that the 44 x 44 mm GeForce GTX 750 Ti would be incompatible with today's most common cooling solutions

As a result, none of the board partners were able to launch using existing heat sinks. Instead, there will need to be new designs specific to GeForce GTX 750 Ti.

We figured out how to make this work though, and we're going to show you how on the next few pages. Just be forewarned: we're really tinkering here. Be careful with your own card so as not to render it worthless.

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  • 0 Hide
    HEXiT , 27 February 2014 12:37
    nice... had a passivley cooled 8800gt the nvidia sparkle coolpipe 3. would push the limits of acceptable cooling when running full bore. i added an old pentium 4 fan and the temps dropped dramatically(33-49'c) way beyond a lot of 3rd party coolers of the time. so i would guess with a little tweaking and somore jerry rigging you could get a similar result... the best part wasthe fan i added was no louder than the zalman 9500led i installed on the cpu so over all there was no noticeable increase in case noise.would love to see if your cooler does a similar trick...
  • 0 Hide
    snowctrl , 27 February 2014 13:37
    Awesome article!! I love fanless.. would love to see TH do a feature or features on quiet computing generally...
  • 0 Hide
    Kruelness , 27 February 2014 16:01
    My Antec DF-85 was loud as hell, replaced all my fans with cougars( which pump tons of air) with the exception of my h110 which still has quite after market fans. Along with my corsair link kit. I have it all automated on custom curves. My case is very cool and close to silent unless you put your ear beside the moving air. Fanless is cool and I really appreciate the article and the work put in. But honestly with a set of great fans and controller, noise is a non issue... unless you are over clocked like nuts and running benchmarks. Mine is over clocked and the only time you hear Anything is when I benchmark my over clocked ivy bridge. IMHO I think you can have the best of both worlds, quiet and performance. Fanless has some ways to go yet or tech needs to run cooler.
  • 0 Hide
    snowctrl , 27 February 2014 17:11
    Quote:
    My Antec DF-85 was loud as hell, replaced all my fans with cougars( which pump tons of air) with the exception of my h110 which still has quite after market fans. Along with my corsair link kit. I have it all automated on custom curves. My case is very cool and close to silent unless you put your ear beside the moving air. Fanless is cool and I really appreciate the article and the work put in. But honestly with a set of great fans and controller, noise is a non issue... unless you are over clocked like nuts and running benchmarks. Mine is over clocked and the only time you hear Anything is when I benchmark my over clocked ivy bridge. IMHO I think you can have the best of both worlds, quiet and performance. Fanless has some ways to go yet or tech needs to run cooler.


    I have a Core i7 4930K @ 4.6Ghz cooled by a Corsair H100i with the stock fans, which I use for 3D rendering, which basically means the processor is under maximum load, sometimes for days at a time. It stays lovely and cool (under 60degrees), but my goodness it's noisy...
  • 0 Hide
    Kruelness , 27 February 2014 18:52
    Well the corsair fans that come with are as loud as a jet. The cougars pump out 120cfm, about double most 120 fans, and never get above 30db. Almost any fan is better than the ones that come with.
  • 0 Hide
    snowctrl , 27 February 2014 19:25
    Quote:
    Well the corsair fans that come with are as loud as a jet. The cougars pump out 120cfm, about double most 120 fans, and never get above 30db. Almost any fan is better than the ones that come with.


    ok ta will look into it - not really considered alternative fans before.
  • 0 Hide
    Kruelness , 27 February 2014 19:31
    Definitely worth every penny. For your ears and your sanity. I like performance but hate loud fans and cases. One of my stipulations when I built my rig. Fast but quite.
  • 0 Hide
    snowctrl , 27 February 2014 20:47
    Quote:
    Definitely worth every penny. For your ears and your sanity. I like performance but hate loud fans and cases. One of my stipulations when I built my rig. Fast but quite.


    I'm interested t know what cases u might recommend then, for quietness under load? I hav a Fractal Design R3, which contains noise pretty well, n a Corsair Military which I reckon has t b about as loud as they come...?
  • 0 Hide
    Kruelness , 27 February 2014 21:05
    Well my df-85 was brutal and loud to start. I personally went for a well ventilated case ( which I later covered in carbon fiber wrap:)  then searched around for some good pwm fans and 30 dB was my limit. I came accross the cougars with PWM using hdb bearings and ordered a slew. They turned out to be better than expected and pump about twice as much air as comparable 120mm fans. It comes down to what you are looking for general cooling / airflow your case offers, what sort of look you are after and what options you are looking for currently / later on(ie. Water cooling rads). If you have a great case like your fractal and just wanted a little less noise, save yourself the headaches by moving over your setup and change your fans. P.s. Sorry for not doing the quote box, being lazy and doing this on my phone.
  • 0 Hide
    Kruelness , 27 February 2014 21:13
    Oh and if your mobo supports it and you can control the pwm fans you may not want or need an addition fan controller for the setup you want. I got the corsair link kit which they are phasing out :(  but it worked wonders for me. It is automatically controlling all my fans and lighting in the case and tied into my sensors. The lights go from blue to green to red when my gpu or cpu start to heat up and the fans only start spinning up past about 50c. In which case I'm probably listening to my game to barely even notice.
  • 0 Hide
    snowctrl , 28 February 2014 09:23
    The lighting setup sounds awesome... I have Corsair H100i and H80i in my two PCs but I've never bothered with the Corsair Link which comes with them, which I presume i what you mean by the 'link kit'... maybe I should!! Could I be really inquisitive (rude) and ask for a detailed parts list of your rig? I'd really like to set up case lighting that changes with temps as you've described...
  • 0 Hide
    Kruelness , 28 February 2014 14:02
    Private message me and I'll give you a run through. Was a rather extensive job.
  • 0 Hide
    GAMER4000 , 3 March 2014 01:07
    The article says there is no passive HD7850??You mean like this passively cooled HD7850 card:http://www.legitreviews.com/powercolor-radeon-hd-7850-scs3-1gb-passive-video-card-review_2213There is also this passively cooled R9 270 card too:http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-170-PC
  • 0 Hide
    zebzz , 6 March 2014 13:37
    I like the idea of passive cooling I have made up a rig using a 4770T ICore 7 45W and managed to get that passiviely cooled. WIth that setup a gpu like that should be able to run games well with no fans. Created around the Lian-Li Spider Case, but mainly used for processing music and very high qulaity.It also has an SSD and no Optical drive, which makes its silent.