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EVGA GeForce GTX 970 ACX has misaligned GPU vs heatpipes
Interesting, the cooler of the EVGA GeForce GTX 970 ACX series graphics cards seems to be somewhat poorly designed. Well that or somebody forgot to look up the GPU placement on the PCB and didn't compare it to the cooler spec sheet. Photos from reviews with the cooler removed show clearly that the GPU is mounted way off the position of the heatpipes.
Redditors point out, the ACX cooler on last year's EVGA GeForce GTX 760 SC had pretty much the same design with just two of the three direct-touch heatpipes actually touching the GPU. This could explain why EVGA's ACX cooler performs more poorly and noisier in reviews versus other custom cooling solutions. They are missing almost a third of the cooler performance.
Above examples where you can see the problem, basically only two pipes are in contact.
And above an example from the ASUS Strix, the way it should look like (photo's are courtesy of the respective owners Bit-Tech).
You just have to wonder, how stuff like that passes QA (quality analysis) control? Didn't they really notice that when designing the GPU placement on the PCB they needed to compare that with the cooler specs ? Now in defense of EVGA, the cooler still offers enough cooling performance, so if you own one .. don't worry. It's just that it could have been a good notch better isn't it? It will also be interesting to see how this pans out with the EVGA GTX 980 ACX cards, with a similar cooler and PCB design, that product might be effected similar to the EVGA GeForce GTX 970 ACX series.
An EVGA Step Down ?
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naedtrax
Junior Member
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Junior Member
Posts: 9
Joined: 2013-07-30
#4919929 Posted on: 09/23/2014 09:35 AM
Official EVGA response.
"The way the EVGA GTX 970 ACX heat sink was designed is based on the GTX 970 wattage plus an additional 40% cooling headroom on top of it. There are 3 heat pipes on the heatsink – 2 x 8mm major heat pipes to distribute the majority of the heat from the GPU to the heatsink, and a 3rd 6mm heatpipe is used as a supplement to the design to reduce another 2-3 degrees Celsius. Also we would like to mention that the cooler passed NVIDIA Greenlight specifications.
Due to the GPU small die size, we intended for the GPU to contact two major heat pipes with direct touch to make the best heat dissipation without any other material in between.
We all know the Maxwell GPU is an extremely power efficient GPU, our SC cooler was overbuilt for it and allowed us to provide cards with boost clocks at over 1300MHz. EVGA also has an “FTW” version for those users who want even higher clocks.
Regarding fan noise, we understand that some have expressed concerns over the fan noise on the EVGA GTX 970 cards, this is not a fan noise issue but it is more of an aggressive fan curve set by the default BIOS. The fan curve can be easily adjusted in EVGA PrecisionX or any other overclocking software. Regardless, we have heard the concerns and will provide a BIOS update to reduce the fan noise during idle.
Thanks,
EVGA"
In short they know it's a **** design and are trying to get out of it
Official EVGA response.
"The way the EVGA GTX 970 ACX heat sink was designed is based on the GTX 970 wattage plus an additional 40% cooling headroom on top of it. There are 3 heat pipes on the heatsink – 2 x 8mm major heat pipes to distribute the majority of the heat from the GPU to the heatsink, and a 3rd 6mm heatpipe is used as a supplement to the design to reduce another 2-3 degrees Celsius. Also we would like to mention that the cooler passed NVIDIA Greenlight specifications.
Due to the GPU small die size, we intended for the GPU to contact two major heat pipes with direct touch to make the best heat dissipation without any other material in between.
We all know the Maxwell GPU is an extremely power efficient GPU, our SC cooler was overbuilt for it and allowed us to provide cards with boost clocks at over 1300MHz. EVGA also has an “FTW” version for those users who want even higher clocks.
Regarding fan noise, we understand that some have expressed concerns over the fan noise on the EVGA GTX 970 cards, this is not a fan noise issue but it is more of an aggressive fan curve set by the default BIOS. The fan curve can be easily adjusted in EVGA PrecisionX or any other overclocking software. Regardless, we have heard the concerns and will provide a BIOS update to reduce the fan noise during idle.
Thanks,
EVGA"
In short they know it's a **** design and are trying to get out of it
Hilbert Hagedoorn
Don Vito Corleone
Posts: 44783
Joined: 2000-02-22
Don Vito Corleone
Posts: 44783
Joined: 2000-02-22
#4919932 Posted on: 09/23/2014 09:37 AM
Yeah we have seen EVGA statements like that in the recent past. Talking their way out of things. Laughable is all I can say.
Yeah we have seen EVGA statements like that in the recent past. Talking their way out of things. Laughable is all I can say.
Corbus
Senior Member
Posts: 2466
Joined: 2009-04-27
Senior Member
Posts: 2466
Joined: 2009-04-27
#4919933 Posted on: 09/23/2014 09:39 AM
Could it be that they used the same cooler thats on the 980 to cut down costs? Seeing that the 970 doesnt emanate as much heat,they thought it will do ok ...either way, d**k move.Curious to see how it looks on the 980.
Could it be that they used the same cooler thats on the 980 to cut down costs? Seeing that the 970 doesnt emanate as much heat,they thought it will do ok ...either way, d**k move.Curious to see how it looks on the 980.
TheDeeGee
Senior Member
Posts: 8131
Joined: 2010-08-28
Senior Member
Posts: 8131
Joined: 2010-08-28
#4919935 Posted on: 09/23/2014 09:40 AM
All you need is a reference design card and a Arctic Accelero Xtreme
They are the Noctuas of GPU Cooling.
All you need is a reference design card and a Arctic Accelero Xtreme
They are the Noctuas of GPU Cooling.
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Senior Member
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Joined: 2014-07-21
Hmm, looks like something went wrong there. I wouldn't be surprised if the performance suffered if all the 970 ACX models are like that.