Cooling With Shroud vs. Egg

[Bulldog17]

I'm getting educated in graphics cards in order to make an intelligent upgrade. Tom's is the best source of info, as usual.

I've noticed that cooling systems seem to be either shroud or egg. Can someone give me (or point to) a quick tutorial on the pros and cons of each? Thanks so much.

 

[mactronix]

Hi
There are variations but basically a fully shrouded card will have slots to exhaust the hot air outside of your case while other types including the egg type will not. Any hot air is then removed from the case buy the airflow design of the case.
Most full cases these days have a more than adequate air flow set up for a single card solution, multiple cards or ones known to run hot should be housed in a case with extra cooling anyway.
Im not a fan of the basic egg shaped coolers as they are not great at keeping the GPU temp down when the card is under stress. This is just down to the quality of the cooling solution and wouldnt be any differant if the same set up was in a shroud.

Third party solutions are the best sort to get like the twin or trebble fans you get on a gigabyte or MSI card for instance. Vapour chamber cooling solutions are also very good. The fan set ups are generally of a better quality and regardless of being of an open type such as a Cyclone cooler or a vapour chamber shrouded card will be better than your basic egg set up.

Mactronix

 

[Bulldog17]

Thanks very much for all that helpful information.

Something I'm not sure I understand: Even if a case has good airflow, why give it more hot air to deal with? It seems that a cooler that exhausts heat right out of the case should be better, no? The high-end cards (6000 series) have shrouds. Nevertheless, the mid-range cards (I'm thinking about a 5770) come in both shroud and egg configurations.

One disadvantage I can see in a shroud is that it makes the package much longer, which makes for a tight fit and also makes it harder to snake in the extra power connector. I get the impression that people who buy 6000-series cards probably built their own computer and purposely chose a case and motherboard that would accommodate a big card. I've got a (recent) Dell, myself.

 

[mactronix]

Thanks very much for all that helpful information.

Something I'm not sure I understand: Even if a case has good airflow, why give it more hot air to deal with? It seems that a cooler that exhausts heat right out of the case should be better, no? The high-end cards (6000 series) have shrouds. Nevertheless, the mid-range cards (I'm thinking about a 5770) come in both shroud and egg configurations.

One disadvantage I can see in a shroud is that it makes the package much longer, which makes for a tight fit and also makes it harder to snake in the extra power connector. I get the impression that people who buy 6000-series cards probably built their own computer and purposely chose a case and motherboard that would accommodate a big card. I've got a (recent) Dell, myself.

Your first point makes perfect sense which is the reasoning they sell the shrouded cards on, nothing wrong with it either.
As i said not all shrouded cards are equal there are variations. Something like a 5770 would be fine as it doesn't run that hot but a higher powered card starts needing the higher volume of cooling that can only really be provided by a decent aftermarket or third party cooler. At this point its not about anything other than cooling the GPU chip and associated circuitry.
Also a cooler card will Overclock further usually as well which is one of the reasons the MSI Hawk version of the 460 can be clocked so high.

Your about right with your other point, shop bought PC's dont tend to be that suitable for upgrading to high end GPU's.

Mactronix

 

[JDFan]

The main thing with the shrouds is that they also restrict the airflow coming into the shroud so the video card will run slightly hotter that the same card with an egg shaped cooler -- so if your overall system airflow is good the egg shape will raise the inside case temps a bit more than the shroud type but will keep the video card slightly cooler since airflow is better around the card. -- so it is a trade off of slightly higher case temps or slightly higher video card temps between the 2 -- so if you have a slimline case or a case with restricted airflow the shroud is your best bet but if your case is larger and has decent airflow then the egg shape will result in a couple degree increase in internal case temps but a cooler video card (which is usually the part that gets the hottest anyway so keeping it a few degrees cooler helps.)

 

[Bulldog17]

Thanks to both of you. This has been really helpful. I wish I could mark both as 'best answers'.

For me, keeping my computer cool and quiet is most important. I have a standard Dell mini-tower so I guess the airflow is okay. It's not a gamer's rig, but I'm not much of a gamer. FSX w/Acceleration and video encoding are my most ambitious graphics-oriented tasks. An egg-type cooler might be better for me.

I'll open up my case tonight and see how much space I have for a better video card. I suspect the shroud might be a really tight fit.