At present, most manufacturers still use the traditional cooling method of heat sink and fan — — The heat generated by the display core is transferred to the heat sink with good thermal conductivity, and then the heat on the heat sink is quickly taken away by the high speed and large air volume of the fan. However, this cooling method has brought many peripheral problems, such as the service life of the fan, fault maintenance and cleaning after long-term use, etc., among which the noise caused by the fan is the most headache for the majority of users. On the other hand, this uniform cooling method makes the homogenization of graphics cards more serious, and the price war is even more fierce, which is not good for consumers and manufacturers.
As a leader in the field of graphics cards, ASUS has long been aware of the increasingly thorny problem of graphics card heat dissipation. In recent years, it has been committed to the research of this problem, and has invested considerable energy in it, striving to achieve perfect heat dissipation with low noise or even no noise on the premise of ensuring the performance of graphics cards. It has continuously innovated and improved the heat dissipation technology of graphics cards and launched a series of classic heat dissipation schemes. Among them, there are active cooling technology with low noise and passive cooling technology with zero decibel, which not only effectively ensures the stable operation of the graphics card, but also gives users a quiet use environment. Below, let’s review five classic graphics card cooling technologies that ASUS has launched.
1. Glaciator Fansink technology
Glaciator Fansink technology is the latest active cooling solution for G92 and RV670 graphics cards designed by ASUS, which is cooler and quieter.
Adopting Glaciator Fansink technology — — Asus EN8800GT/G/HTDP/1G
Although ASUS has innovated a number of passive graphics card cooling technologies, which can produce silent graphics cards with zero decibel and no noise, it is difficult for G92 and RV670, which have reached the peak of their core transistor integration, to cope with the huge heat generated by their operation. Even if it is technically feasible, the cooling cost is too expensive. For most consumers, it is difficult to accept the purchase of graphics cards with huge heat dissipation costs in exchange for a zero decibel environment. Because of this, from the interests of consumers, ASUS has carried out research and innovation in the active heat dissipation of graphics cards, and launched Glaciator Fansink technology with low noise and high heat dissipation efficiency.
Asustek replaced the single-socket integrated radiator of the original public 8800 GT graphics card with a quieter and better cooling effect "Glaciator Fansink" cooling design. Although it does not cover the memory chips, it can also take care of their cooling and even provide wind power for the power supply components. After testing, the working noise of this ASUS EN8800GT/G/HTDP/1G is only 25dB, which is only half of that of the public graphics card. It can provide a quieter game environment for gamers, and the core temperature of GPU is 7℃ lower than that of the public graphics card, so it has better stability and stronger overclocking ability. At the same time, a unique heat sink is installed on the MOSFET tube in the power supply system to ensure that the huge heat generated by the MOSFET tube can be dissipated in time and ensure the stable operation of the power supply system. The cooling solution completely surpasses the public 8800GT graphics card, which brings us a quieter environment and a better overclocking platform, and also saves the cooling cost for users. It is a perfect active cooling technology for graphics cards at present.
2. Reversecool technology
Reversecool technology is a cooling technology introduced by ASUS that subverts the traditional graphics card design. The unique feature is that the display core is designed on the back of the graphics card, which greatly improves the passive cooling efficiency.
ASUS’s first graphics card with back display core — — ASUS Extreme AX700 Silencer/TD/256M
The traditional graphics card design is to put the display core on the front of the PCB board, but in the chassis, the heat generated by the display core is isolated at the lower part of the graphics card because of the blocking of the board card, and the heat is concentrated around the card body and cannot be effectively taken away. However, due to the high size and speed of CPU fan, the air flow brought by CPU fan is much larger than that of graphics card fan. However, due to the block of PCB between display core and CPU, air cannot be circulated directly. Because of this, ASUS engineers try to use Reversecool technology to make the display core on the back of PCB. Through the heat sink, the heat can be directly taken away by the airflow of the CPU fan, which can bring about a temperature drop of nearly 20℃ and greatly improve the heat dissipation efficiency.
As you can see, this graphics card uses a fan-free heat pipe to dissipate heat. Its uniqueness lies in that the heat sink can flexibly rotate through a rotating shaft, making the heat sink "V"-shaped. There are two advantages of heat dissipation with this design: first, the design of foldable heat sink can be flexibly set according to the volume of the north bridge heat sink. On some motherboards, the heat sink of the North Bridge is large, which may conflict with the heat sink installed on the back of the GPU. The folding design avoids this situation. When the heat sink of the North Bridge is large, the folding heat sink can be opened without affecting the installation of the graphics card because the heat sink is too thick. Second, the heat dissipation area of the heat sink after opening is greatly increased, so that the wind power of the CPU fan can be better utilized. The arrangement of this radiator is very clever, which not only solves the conflict between the radiator and the north bridge radiator caused by the oversized radiator, but also provides enough heat dissipation area.
3. Silentcool and Silentcool2 technologies.
SilentCool technology is a silent graphics card cooling technology launched by ASUS in 2006. One of its major features is to transfer the core heat to the top fin for cooling by using heat pipe technology.
Asus EN7800GT/TopSilent/256M with SilentCool technology.
The unique feature of ASUS SilentCool technology is that it organically combines heat pipe heat dissipation with PC heat dissipation, and it has attracted great attention with its unique design and appearance. Its technical core lies in the fanless design with high-efficiency heat pipe and large-area heat sink, which can increase the heat exchange area and quickly transfer the heat generated by GPU to the heat sink. The large-area heat sink on the front of the graphics card is responsible for absorbing the heat emitted by the GPU. At the same time, more heat sink structures are placed on the top of the graphics card, and the heat pipe is responsible for the rapid transfer of heat, and the heat is dissipated through finer heat fins, which is also the unique feature of SilentCool technology.
Another unique feature is that the joint between the cooling fin on the top of the graphics card and the cooling device on the front of the graphics card can be rotated, so the collision between the larger cooling device on the top of the graphics card and the accessories in the chassis can be avoided by rotating for a certain angle; In addition, it can be rotated above the CPU, and the upward airflow provided by the CPU fan can take away the heat on the heat sink, which further strengthens the heat dissipation effect and avoids the shortcomings of high failure rate of air cooling and high cost of water cooling. In this way, even if the graphics card is running at full speed, it can realize the working state of 0dB full silence. Compared with other graphics cards with passive cooling system, the graphics card with SilentCool technology can reduce the working temperature of the display core by up to 40 degrees Celsius.
Asus EN7600GT SILENT/HTD/256M with SilentCool 2 technology.
SilentCool 2 technology is an upgraded version of SilentCool. Compared with SilentCool, the biggest improvement is that it combines the traditional method of enhancing the passive heat dissipation of graphics cards. The front of the graphics card is no longer equipped with a large area of heat sink, which looks very simple, but the back of the graphics card is equipped with a large area of heat sink, which conducts the heat from the front of the graphics card to the heat sink on the back through heat pipes. This design can make full use of the airflow formed by CPU, power supply and chassis fan to accelerate the heat dissipation, and further improve the heat dissipation efficiency.
4, suspension heat pipe heat dissipation technology
Suspended heat pipe heat dissipation technology is another unique weapon of ASUS — — The heat sink is not attached to the graphics card, but suspended in mid-air.
ASUS EAX1600XT/Silent/TVD/256M with suspended heat pipe heat dissipation technology.
The front of the graphics card is only covered with a heat sink on the display core, and the heat of the graphics card core is conducted to the heat dissipation module with a large number of heat sinks on the back through two heat pipes. This module is suspended above the back, which not only effectively dissipates the heat of the graphics card, but also avoids the problem of heat backflow caused by traditional back heat dissipation. With this technology, the heat dissipation efficiency of the graphics card can be greatly improved, and the perfect mute effect can be achieved.
Dense heat sinks are placed on the back of the graphics card and supported by two heat pipes. In addition, because the suspended heat sinks are not in contact with the back of the graphics card, the weight of the heat sinks is all applied to the front core. In order to protect the core and balance the pressure, a large-area reinforcement fastener is designed at the back core of the product, which not only strengthens the protection equipment, but also has the function of heat sinks.
From the side, we can see more clearly that the heat sink is suspended above the back of the graphics card, so we can understand the meaning of "suspension" more deeply.
5. SmartCooling technology
The cooling technology of ASUS graphics cards introduced earlier is based on the innovation and improvement of hardware design, while the SmartCooling technology exclusively developed by ASUS is a software-based cooling technology for graphics cards. Users who don’t use silent graphics cards can also enjoy a low-noise environment, which brings users a new way to reduce cooling noise at low cost and also embodies ASUS’s fundamental purpose of taking the interests of users as the foundation.
SmartCooling technology can only be used on ASUS graphics cards, and the speed of the fan and the temperature of the circuit board can be detected and adjusted by a special monitoring chip, which can dynamically control the speed of the graphics card fan in daily use, thus effectively reducing the noise of the fan, and more effectively dissipating heat when the GPU load is high.
Players can set the temperature critical values of five GPUs, and then dynamically adjust the fan speed according to the state of temperature setting. When the temperature of GPU is low, SmartCooling will automatically reduce the fan speed to reduce noise. When the GPU temperature is high, SmartCooling will increase the fan speed to do the most efficient cooling action.
The introduction of these innovative graphics card cooling technologies, on the one hand, highlights ASUS’s strong technical research and development strength, makes ASUS a pioneer in graphics card cooling technology, and establishes ASUS’s flagship position in the field of graphics card cooling; On the other hand, it also makes ASUS graphics cards have more distinctive product features in the increasingly homogeneous graphics card market, which is conducive to the long-term development of ASUS, and also plays a positive role in promoting the diversification of graphics card products and the diversification of graphics card market. Of course, ASUS will not stop there, and will continue to adhere to the integration of humanization and environmental protection into products, bringing more touches to users.
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