Would you buy cooler-less graphics card?
Posted on 25th Sep 2009 at 11:15 by Antony Leather with 44 comments
Lets face it, water cooling your PC can be expensive. One of the most wallet-shredding bits is when you get to the graphics card. Full cover copper blocks for some of the larger graphics cards can cost over £100, but I recently had an idea that I thought I'd throw out to you guys to see what you think.
Instead of buying an air cooled card or a hideously expensive pre-water cooled example, what if you could buy just
the PCB?
Let me explain my madness.
Firstly, whoever makes it doesn't need to fit a cooler, hopefully meaning it costs less. Reference coolers have never been too clever but one would assume they add a fair bit to the overall cost of the product, not to mention all the extra packaging etc.
You also don't have the laborious task of removing it and dealing with those hundreds of microscopic screws, and invariably the last one that no amount of force will budge. You can just fit your block or aftermarket cooler straight away.
Secondly it means you can can choose your own cooling. This applies not just to water cooling enthusiasts who will be able to choose their own water block, but also to those who just want a decent air cooler like Arctic Cooling's Accelero Xtreme.
Of course, companies would have to come up with another way of advertising because there'd be no cooler with stickers or luminous bits of plastic to draw attention. You'd also have no way of testing your card before it gets plumbed in too, although you could probably check that it outputs a display and that your system posts for a few seconds with the water block installed but not connected to your cooling loop.
More importantly RMA's would be a tricky thing to work out as there would be the inevitable noobs that break things by assuming the card would work on its own...
Would this appeal to anyone? Would you buy an OEM style, cooler-less graphics card if it was cheaper? Or do you prefer to have a cooler fitted even if the first thing you'll do is rip it off and get it under water? Let us know in the forums.
Instead of buying an air cooled card or a hideously expensive pre-water cooled example, what if you could buy just
the PCB?
Let me explain my madness.
Firstly, whoever makes it doesn't need to fit a cooler, hopefully meaning it costs less. Reference coolers have never been too clever but one would assume they add a fair bit to the overall cost of the product, not to mention all the extra packaging etc.
MSI's GTX 285 HydroGen OC is more expensive than buying the card and block yourself.
You also don't have the laborious task of removing it and dealing with those hundreds of microscopic screws, and invariably the last one that no amount of force will budge. You can just fit your block or aftermarket cooler straight away.
Secondly it means you can can choose your own cooling. This applies not just to water cooling enthusiasts who will be able to choose their own water block, but also to those who just want a decent air cooler like Arctic Cooling's Accelero Xtreme.
Arctic Cooling's Accelero Xtreme cooler is available for many high end graphics cards but features much better cooling than the reference cooler.
Of course, companies would have to come up with another way of advertising because there'd be no cooler with stickers or luminous bits of plastic to draw attention. You'd also have no way of testing your card before it gets plumbed in too, although you could probably check that it outputs a display and that your system posts for a few seconds with the water block installed but not connected to your cooling loop.
More importantly RMA's would be a tricky thing to work out as there would be the inevitable noobs that break things by assuming the card would work on its own...
Would this appeal to anyone? Would you buy an OEM style, cooler-less graphics card if it was cheaper? Or do you prefer to have a cooler fitted even if the first thing you'll do is rip it off and get it under water? Let us know in the forums.
44 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyI'd rether have companies setting themselves apart by not using the reference cooler with a sticker on it but by offering coolers of their own.
Lasttly the only-pcb would not be resellable. If you like to upgrade your card every now and then this could be an issue.
im surprised manufacturers dont already do this tbh
The card would also need to have a significant price drop - while I doubt that reference coolers cost more than £30, simply removing the cooler and charging the same price (or more - I could see a lot of companies trying to charge more for a card already "prepared for watercooling") wouldn't cut it.
+1.
CPU won't work without motherboard and RAM.
graphics card is a complete solution, i don't need to add vRAM or PCB to it, therefore it should come with a cooler.
one day, we can put GPU into graphics card PCB and choose our own GDDR chips, then they shouldn't come with a cooler.
TBH I think it's fair to say they do already! ;)
And graphics card won't work without CPU, motherboard and RAM! But I get your point.
I don't usually buy OEM CPUs without bundled coolers because they often retail at the same price or near enough as the full retail CPU. If you buy a whole box of them as a system builder then I'm sure it's cheaper but as an enthusiast unfortunately not.
I can see problems getting online sellers to RMA a graphics card without a cooler too. I guess at the moment board partners may need AMD or Nvidia's permission to build such a card and maybe that's why we've not seen them?
I prefer this myself. Whilst I did change the cooler on my first graphics card (7950GT 512) that was only because the stock one was horrible. My 8800GTS is quite happy with its stock cooler and seems to be coping fine.
On the other hand, when I can roll my own graphics card (which does seem unlikely) then sure, have a system like you get with processors!
edit: actually, if I remember correctly, don't the manufacturers supply pre-built cards to the board partners with the option of no cooler anyway? if that is the case it doesn't seem a huge leap to provide one completely without cooler at little extra cost to anyone. In which case, I am all for the choice!
What I think would make more sense would be for the video card manufacturers to work out a deal with the cooler manufacturers, and offer a package deal.
Instead of the gfx card company spending $10 to manufacture a terrible reference cooler, they should buy the good coolers from a reputable company, then pre-install them. I bet the cooler manufacturers would be willing to give a bulk discount if a gfx card manufacturer uses them on all their cards.
For instance, say you buy an EVGA grapgics card for $150. That price includes a $10 reference cooler. Then you go and buy a Zalman heatpipe cooler for $30, and that's that. You spend $180, and have to do some work on it. But what if EVGA buys 10,000 heatpipes from Zalman for $20 (since Zalman gives a bulk discount, and saves money by not having to sell the heatpipes in retail packaging), then puts them on all their graphics card, and advertise in an area on the box "Cooled by ZALMAN". They can sell the cards for $160, and people are willing to pay more because they know that the fancy Zalman cooler costs $30 on its own, and they're getting it for only $10 extra. Zalman would benefit by selling more units, and EVGA would benefit by being able to offer a better product, and have name-brand recognition for Zalman.
That, IMO, would work better.
I believe the benefit of improved cooling will outweigh the potential of this being an issue over time. If you bought a card that looks like its warped off the shelf you might have a different opinion.
This would perhaps call for more PCB layers which would drive manufacturing costs up swaying the argument back in favour of the op.
The alternative would be
Of course I would like to see more variety of cards w/ pre-fitted waterblocks - not just some silly restrictive block that I wouldn't normally buy (let alone pay a mark up for!!)
Bob
still i don't see it becoming a trend as there will be those newbs who'll buy such a card blindly and install it, expecting it to work without a cooler
But the only way it could happen is if it never had a warranty in the first place, No manufacturer is going to release cards without a cooler for the potential issues of incorrectly fitted coolers or worse people not even fitting one.
The only way it could work and im not sure on the legality of it would be to offer significantly cheaper cards without a cooler and little or no warranty.
That's true, but then I suppose someone would go out of business if we could just use the same water block over and over instead of having to buy new ones! That's one reason I suppose why I tend to splurge ££££££ on a good card and block so I can keep them for as long as possible. At least with CPU blocks things are a little more permanent.
hehe,
S*D