Possible to switch/upgrade GPU blower fans?

TristanDuboisOLG

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May 10, 2018
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I picked up an Alienware x51 R2 as a gift this weekend for about $60. Thing wouldn't boot and I knew how to fix the problem. Once I fixed that, added an SSD, upgraded to a Dell 330w, and found a new GPU, I realized that I may have a new problem. Heat.

There are a lot of people online with X51s that talk about heat mitigation. Blower style GPUs are a huge thing in this case. I was looking into upgrading all of the other fans in the case when I finally had an idea. People often upgrade their GPUs with aftermarket fans and heatsinks like the Arctic accelero line. So then I though to myself, Is it possible to upgrade something like the blower fans on the reference GPUs?

There are a ton of replacement blowers on Amazon I just don't know what to look for and near as I can tell there are no threads online with information on this subject. So things like importance of fin density, fan gap (example), or fan power limitations and that would make it really difficult to continue without great cost to myself.

I only recently realized that this was super niche and that if any one group or forum would know this sort of thing that if would be here. Anyone have any thoughts?
 

Thehack

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Can you upgrade the blower fan? Not really. It's designed to match the plastic shroud over the heatsink.

You never mentioned your gpu, which would certainly help to mention.

Certain blowers use extruded aluminum for the heatsink, so if that is the case, it can be upgraded to a finstack design with vapor chamber. But the issue is then the blowers are board specific and blowers are the cheap and crappy cooler you want to avoid, so there's very little information on modding and fitting blowers.

For the cost a fancy blower and modifying your gpu, it may also be worth while to use a more powerful graphics card and detune it. For example a GTX 1070 operating at the performance of a 1060 will consume much less power than the 1060.

And that fan mod is really really silly. Some people really over think things.
 
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Thehack

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Terribly sorry about that. So many posts and I've completely lost my head. The card is a RX 470.

The RX 470 has a very cheap aluminum block for the heatsink. You can probably figure out a way to replace the block with something better, like one from the Vega 56 or GTX series.

You can also switch to a GTX 1660 or 1060 blower and you'd have less heat. May be more feasible than modding the block.

You can also do an undervolt which is the free option.
 
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TristanDuboisOLG

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May 10, 2018
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The MSI 1660 TI Gamer X is a card that runs cool, quiet, and is power efficient.

While that is all true, I am giving the computer away to a friend. $60 for the whole thing, $30 for the 330w PSU, and $75 for the RX470 really doesn't hurt the wallet too too much. A brand new 1660ti will.

The 470 really just hits that used price perfomance and TDP stat that I'm looking for.

Also, for anyone else reading. Arctic Accellero has "universal" designs for certain cards the 470 and the r7 290 are in the same category/design. While the 470 does have a shitty aluminium block with no copper heat pipes, the R7 290 did. There are other important parts like VRM that need to be cooled so I'm going to look into it more. But if it has a significant improvement in cooling then I may try to pick up just the cooler for $10-$15.