Aftermarket air coolers for GPUs, why is this not a thing?

[grendel0501]

I'm one of those people who is too wary to make the step over to water cooling. The entry price is high, and if the pump dies parts can be lost.

I do however try to get the best when it comes to air cooling.
Which has always led me to wonder, why doesn't a company like noctua make aftermarket air coolers for GPUs?
CPU coolers have come so far that even Intel doesn't bother to ship air coolers with their chips anymore. (looks at stack of factory heatsinks in computer parts pile)

With as much fan/heatsink as Noctua can sell you for $90, I imagine they could make something that could easily out cool the AIB card configs.
EVGA's 2080ti models go from $1000 to $1350. Thats a big variation, with really only 2 heatsink choices with one of those having 2 or 3 fans. Imagine if you could buy their lowest model, spend only a extra $100 and end up with better peformance than their best air cooled model.

I saw a video on youtube where someone took a Noctua double tower cooler and mounted it to a 980ti, he ended up shaving 25-30c off the standard heatsinks temps.

So why isn't there a company out there that is trying to do this?

The main downsides I can see would be having to void your warranty to install the cooler and then needing some kind of brace to take the extra weight off the PCIE.
Imagine if Nvidia released 2080ti boards without any cooling, sold specifically for people who intend to add aftermarket cooling. Would save money for people who intend to add a water block too.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Google 'Arctic Acellero'.

 

[grendel0501]

Google 'Arctic Acellero'.

Nice to see that Artic is trying to meet this need.
Thats a good start, but I want something alittle beefier.

Something that takes up the whole 5-6in of space I have underneath my GPU.

 

[Alaric]

I can run Heaven at the clocks in my sig and my card doesn't exceed 70C with the stock cooler, which works out because I have about 2" below my card.

 

[trents]

I'm one of those people who is too wary to make the step over to water cooling. The entry price is high, and if the pump dies parts can be lost.

I do however try to get the best when it comes to air cooling.
Which has always led me to wonder, why doesn't a company like noctua make aftermarket air coolers for GPUs?
CPU coolers have come so far that even Intel doesn't bother to ship air coolers with their chips anymore. (looks at stack of factory heatsinks in computer parts pile)

With as much fan/heatsink as Noctua can sell you for $90, I imagine they could make something that could easily out cool the AIB card configs.
EVGA's 2080ti models go from $1000 to $1350. Thats a big variation, with really only 2 heatsink choices with one of those having 2 or 3 fans. Imagine if you could buy their lowest model, spend only a extra $100 and end up with better peformance than their best air cooled model.

I saw a video on youtube where someone took a Noctua double tower cooler and mounted it to a 980ti, he ended up shaving 25-30c off the standard heatsinks temps.

So why isn't there a company out there that is trying to do this?

The main downsides I can see would be having to void your warranty to install the cooler and then needing some kind of brace to take the extra weight off the PCIE.
Imagine if Nvidia released 2080ti boards without any cooling, sold specifically for people who intend to add aftermarket cooling. Would save money for people who intend to add a water block too.

This is only true for the overclockable ones.

 

[grendel0501]

Quick someone cut me the adapter I need for a 2080ti!

 

[freakdiablo]

There used to be a bigger selection, back when even higher end cards were still coming with with single slot coolers. But these days stock air coolers on a lot of mid to high end non-reference cards are pretty good for within the limits of what manufacturers have to work with (dual slot, ~30-35cm long being the "max"). I guess the market isn't there for anything bigger/better, due to many going for liquid/AIO cooling after that which you already mentioned you want to avoid.

 

[EarthDog]

Something that takes up the whole 5-6in of space I have underneath my GPU.

Wow... really?

I think that part of the reason we don't see as many as we used to is there simply isn't a need for it, really. At least for NVIDIA cards, they are pretty locked down. Even water cooling doesn't yield but another boost bin or two of improvement on those cards. Cooling isn't the issue on an cards with a non reference type cooling solution.

 

[wagex]

I'm one of those people who is too wary to make the step over to water cooling. The entry price is high, and if the pump dies parts can be lost.

I do however try to get the best when it comes to air cooling.
Which has always led me to wonder, why doesn't a company like noctua make aftermarket air coolers for GPUs?
CPU coolers have come so far that even Intel doesn't bother to ship air coolers with their chips anymore. (looks at stack of factory heatsinks in computer parts pile)

With as much fan/heatsink as Noctua can sell you for $90, I imagine they could make something that could easily out cool the AIB card configs.
EVGA's 2080ti models go from $1000 to $1350. Thats a big variation, with really only 2 heatsink choices with one of those having 2 or 3 fans. Imagine if you could buy their lowest model, spend only a extra $100 and end up with better peformance than their best air cooled model.

I saw a video on youtube where someone took a Noctua double tower cooler and mounted it to a 980ti, he ended up shaving 25-30c off the standard heatsinks temps.

So why isn't there a company out there that is trying to do this?

The main downsides I can see would be having to void your warranty to install the cooler and then needing some kind of brace to take the extra weight off the PCIE.
Imagine if Nvidia released 2080ti boards without any cooling, sold specifically for people who intend to add aftermarket cooling. Would save money for people who intend to add a water block too.

they used to be quite the thing back in the day there were many options, then card makers started coming out wth multi fan quiet options that make that made it not worth anyone risking their warranty or borking their gpu to swap coolers out. Ontop of that gpu's are far more efficient than they used to be, most gpu's dont even run the fans when idle, and hold good temps even over clocked with a full load.

 

[EarthDog]

I just saw this:

I'm one of those people who is too wary to make the step over to water cooling. The entry price is high, and if the pump dies parts can be lost.

While entry will be higher than air, if the pump dies, the parts just shut off when they hit a certain threshold. They are designed to do this. With Intel CPUs for example. THere is a TJMAX setting in the CPU which will throttling the CPU (speed and voltage) so it stays under temp. If that doesn't help, there is a shutdown point to prevent damage. GPUs are similar in that respect. You can also set temps to have your system shutdown at XX temp. So, there are plenty of safe gaurds there for prevention.