Random Hardware topics

[Kaamos_Llama]

You make really good points. The VRAM is really the biggest thing worth spending more money on, as games are starting to demand more and more VRAM. I've had a few games crash because 6GB on my current card just isn't enough, 8GB may very well be the same situation in just a few short years. We can hope that more AI features like DLSS and such will help reduce VRAM usage, but how well is that going to work when games are demanding more than 8GB on the minimum requirements? It could very well happen soon.

I would wait and see what the AMD RX9060 looks like for this reason. Frame gen actually increases VRAM use so it wont be much help if it pushes you over.

Also off topic, why are triple fan cards cheaper than dual fans? There may not be one single answer, I feel it may be due to supply, but with this latest gen of RTX and RX cards I've been seeing triple fan models cheaper than the smaller dual fans. I've never owned a triple fan card for some reason, never bought dual fans because I had to but because it was what was available, however I hear triple fan cards are generally better at thermals.

Could be that the other components of the cooler and PCB are higher end. The heatpipes that move the heat to the heatsinks fins could be bigger or more of them, and the PCB and SM components could be better. Two bigger fans can be quieter on average than 3 smaller fans running higher rpms, probably other stuff.

Had a quick look and it looks like from 5070 up the heatsinks have to be long to handle the heat generated and they almost all have 3 fans to cover it.

 

[Colif]

Its likely there are thermal limits that the cooling has to match, and that's why the higher end cards more likely to be 3 fans. And a really chunky heat sink.

Its possible the makers of the 3 slot cards use the same PCB/Heatsinks for higher level cards and its just cheaper to use them for lower. The Red Devil RX 7900XTX looks almost identical to mine, the only difference being number of pcie cables needed to run it.

Maybe they made too many of them and people are buying cases that are too small for 330mm GPU to fit in... I know that was a trend for a while, some of the Fractal cases were too small to fit my GPU.

Now my GPU could in theory have 4 120mm fans and still fit in the case, But weight starts to become a factor, need the card to not sag. Mine does unless I hold it up at the right end. Shorter 2 fan cards less likely to sag. Not all motherboards have shielding on the sockets to stop the cards damaging them from weight. Cheaper ones less so.

Many 3 fan cards have 1 big fan in the middle, and 2 smaller ones either side running in opposite directions. I never hear mine when they are running. Not that they need to anymore to keep cool.

Dual purpose photo: shows why I don't need my GPU fans spinning all the time to keep it cool anymore, and the white cable that is below where my sata ports are

unrelated: expect to see more cases with less space for sata drives, as latest trend is only a limited number of sata ports on motherboards.
I only have 4 sata ports and really need to want to use them as mine are hidden under my GPU - white cable above is directly under where they are - and I would need to take it out to install the cable.

Eventually its likely boards only have one or two for legacy reasons, same as USB2 slots on motherboards.

I wish I had noticed that before. Might be easier to change my sig as really I am only using 300gb of 5.5tb so its really not needed yet.