Why more cards available w/ fan than w/ passive heatsink (fanless)?

[frankca]

I'm just curious (I hope this is not FAQ)...

1) Why more cards available with fan than with passive heatsink (fanless) - fanless should be preferable right? Is it because cards with fan work in most systems?

2) How much the different in term of noise between fan vs. fanless? Why the noise level of cards with fan varied between models?

-Frank

 

[ausch30]

I'm assuming your talking about video cards, first of all most cards released in the last 6-7 years produce too much heat to be cooled passively. If a card is passively cooled the heatsink needs to be very large to be able to remove enough heat from the GPU and some mid to low-end cards use this method for silent PC or HTPC use. There are aftermarket fanless heatsinks available for higher end video cards but these take up 3 or even 4 expansion slots.

The answer to your next question is that passively cooled cards are silent actively cooled cards are not and the difference between noise levels depends on the card and how much heat it produces also if it's factory overclocked and also if it uses the reference cooler.

 

[jaguarskx]

1. Cost. It is more expensive because you need more metal touching the GPU and RAM to dissipate the heat. In some silent solutions the heatsink isn't even touching the RAM chips.

2. Limited overclocking at best. Since a large heatsink cannot dissipate heat as quickly as an active solution, the video cards are usually sold at stock speeds. Thus enthusiasts will be avoiding those video cards.

3. Too much heat to dissipate. The 2900/8800 series produces too much heat to be passively cooled and gaming enthusiasts are more concerned about performance than a silent card.


Video cards generally use small fans. The hotter the card the faster that small fan must spin. Therefore, the louder it gets.