AMD Confirms Custom Radeon RX 5700 GPUs Coming in August, Defends Blower Design

[Tsing]

AMD Radeon VP And GM Scott Herkelman has confirmed that custom Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards will be hitting sometime in mid-August. Many enthusiasts are holding out for non-reference variants because they aren't fans of blower designs, but Herkelman has defended the decision by claiming it is the best way to guarantee performance.

The Radeon group historically has had a bad reputation of producing product launch charts that didn’t match up to real world performance. Love it or hate it the blower allowed us to guarantee performance in every system to match our launch charts. Not everyone cools their PC as good as a reviewer and definitely not as good as some of the pictures you guys have shared. It was my goal to clean all of this up so that you can trust our performance you hear from us on stage.

Herkelman also hinted that AMD might utilize dual or triple-fan designs for future reference cards.

But the feedback over the past few weeks has been really good for us to read. Going forward:

1). If blower design are used also offer dual/tri-axial options at launch for the enthusiasts. I like this idea. 2). Have reviews hit before shelf date (working on this with team) 3). Keep jebaiting NV - easily done.

Keep posting guys. I’m reading.

Scott

 

[ThreeDee]

I thought getting that hot air out of the case was always a good thing ...

 

[Strelok]

I thought getting that hot air out of the case was always a good thing ...

It's good for the rest of the components, but it has a pretty big impact on GPU temp/noise that I would argue it isn't worth it.

 

[ThreeDee]

It's good for the rest of the components, but it has a pretty big impact on GPU temp/noise that I would argue it isn't worth it.

so if you have good air flow in your case to keep feeding cooler air to that blower style heat sink .. is it a "moot" point then? ..or would you still be in favor of 2/3 fan style coolers?

I've never ran a blower style card in my setup so I'm curious as I would really like to get my hands on a new RX 5700 (xt)

 

[Strelok]

The blower will always perform worse than the 2/3 fan models because it can only pull in so much air with that 1 fan. Good airflow would probably help the AIB models more than the blower. Personally I would wait for the AIB models, watercool it or use an aftermarket universal cooler.

 

[Brian_B]

Blower - works but sucks in a good case, works but sucks in a bad case

2/3 axial - can work really well in a good case, but will work really bad to not work at all in a bad case.

I can kinda see AMD's point, but at the same time, it's just not that good to begin with. Blower design is ok if they want to stick to that, they just need to update theirs with something better.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

so if you have good air flow in your case to keep feeding cooler air to that blower style heat sink .. is it a "moot" point then? ..or would you still be in favor of 2/3 fan style coolers?

I've never ran a blower style card in my setup so I'm curious as I would really like to get my hands on a new RX 5700 (xt)

I think that these days when running the top end card of the top tier models for either manufacturer that blower coolers have pretty much reached EOL. There's a limit to how much that design can cool and I'm pretty sure we're really starting to hit it now and especially if trying to OC them to max. The lower end cards can probably still do fine since they're using less power and generating less heat.

 

[Brian_B]

I think that these days when running the top end card of the top tier models for either manufacturer that blower coolers have pretty much reached EOL. There's a limit to how much that design can cool and I'm pretty sure we're really starting to hit it now and especially if trying to OC them to max. The lower end cards can probably still do fine since they're using less power and generating less heat.

Your right. It's the classic problem of larger fans = slower RPM/lower noise for equivalent cooling.

In a blower design, your extremely limited to the size of a fan you can use - it typically has to fit within a 2-slot PCI solution. And with the orientation of a centrifugal fan to the fins and air flow, meaning you just can't get that much blade surface area. Your only option is to crank up the RPM, which will also crank up the noise, and all your exhaust has to exit out a hole the size of a single PCI bracket.

Your guaranteed the hot air is going to get exhausted with a blower, but 2 or 3 much larger axial fans that have much more blade surface area are going to be able to outperform it easily; so long as something else is serving to ultimately exhaust the hot air outside of the case.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Your guaranteed the hot air is going to get exhausted with a blower, but 2 or 3 much larger axial fans that have much more blade surface area are going to be able to outperform it easily; so long as something else is serving to ultimately exhaust the hot air outside of the case.

My last 3 gens of card purchases have all been that. Gigabyte G1 970's(SLI) >G1 1080's(SLI)> Strix 2080TI for one rig, and Strix 1080TI in the other. I then also modded the case fans in each for a series of fans around the bottom/sides to intake and top/sides for exhaust. Has worked out great other than increased noise when I want to OC them to extremes. I think my last single fan blower style was somewhere around GTX260 or something like that.

 

[Terminus]

I have no issue with blower designs as a reference cooler. Don't get me wrong, if AMD offers a blower and a dual/tri fan reference in the future then that's great. More options are always better than less.
I understand blowers can only have one smaller fan vs dual/tri fan coolers. If I wanted a dual/tri fan blower I'd by an AIB non-reference card. Why not get the chips to AIB partners earlier to have cards for launch day? Moar cards the better!
I've run reference style coolers on my past 3 cards no problem, I game with a good headset, the noise doesn't bother me. I can see how no one wants to listen to a blower fan spinning at 100% without headphones on lol. I only crank my blower fan up in 3D mode.
The last time I replaced a reference cooler on a GPU was my Geforce 6800 ultra. If I need to now I just replace the stock TIM and slap the original cooler right back on.

 

[Richard Gouge]

I just hope an AIB comes out with one with 5+ display outs like Gigabyte did for the Vega, I needs 5 monitor outputs man!