HTCMakes sense.

Still, it all comes down to how much is saved on "real estate" VS how much is spent on the more costly HBM ram.

ZeDestructorPCB area isn't that big of a deal on lower-power cards (yet), as shown by the 740-750Ti: there's a few low-profile variants out there. The issue more often than not is the age-old cooling question, with the low-profile cards needing double-slot cooling.

The reason why memory isn't an issue on low-power cards is really quite simple: the card gets compute-limited before it gets memory-limited. Of course, with time this will change, I suspect 2-3 more generations myself.

The other part of the cost is the engineering and binning costs, which must also be thought about, and also a tradeoff :).

HTCThat also depends on how much power those "lower power" cards have. I was looking for the highest "low power" card i can get, so i can underclock it like crazy and STILL have great performance. If such a card wont be in this generation, then i just have to wait for the next generation: we'll see ...

Double slot cooling? Still???? That surprises me, tbh!

ZeDestructorEnjoy

It's just a plain aluminium-fin design, nothing particularly fancy with heatpipes or vapour chambers, but it is compact, and probably somewhat loud too... Colorful reportedly builds a blower variant, but I can't find a link to it.

HTCThat's a HUGE no no for me: i value quietness allot.

ZeDestructorWell, I mean relatively.. it should be around as loud as the CPU cooler in an SFF build. If you want quieter, you'll need a watercooled loop of some sort, or have to move up to a full-height card where they can fit a much larger fan.

deemonAir cooling is a lot quieter than waterloops. Also they usually take less space than water cooling (just because water cooling radiator is elsewhere, doesn't make it smaller)

ZeDestructorI disagree on the quieter part. Sound depends entirely on your fan choice, and to a very minor extent, your pump. If I put a 6500rpm San Ace fan on an NH-D15 and an 1500rpm Noctua NF-F12 fan on a Nexxos Monsta, the Monsta is going to be magnitudes quieter.

deemonThis was about the concept of air cooler vs closed loop liquid cooler (that already means, you use the same everything else ... like case, CPU, GPU, PSU, also used cooler fans if they are not somehow fixed/molded to your cooler and unremovable. .... you trying to bring the topic to san ace vs noctua is utter nonsense.... were we comparing fans here? NO).

ZeDestructorFans are by far the main source of noise in any decent watercooling loop. On a CLC, the pump is usually a tiny, quiet little thing, and on a custom loop, you mount your pump(s) in some form of vibration-isolating mount, which brings the noise down to near zero. The lat source of noise would be air trapped in your pump, but that should only last the amount of time it takes you to bleed the air out of your loop and no more, since air in pump is how you fry your pumps.

With identical fans, running at identical speeds, an air cooler and a radiator will sound equally loud. Note I said sound equal, not produce equal noise.

BrusfantometHaving a swiftech MCP35X i can promise you that its far from quiet, eaven at 10% pwm and 1300 rpm it is verry audible, eaven tho i have mounted it on a shoggy sandwich thing that isolates the pump from the cabinet.

For the same OC a water cooling loop has the potential to be quieter than air, but at stock the water cooling will have the added noise from the pump, meaning that with the same fans it will always be louder, given that the air cooler is not saturated.

BrusfantometI have noticed that i might be a bit sensitive to fan/pump noise, in my experience any thing spinning over 600 rpm is noisy.

Is the MCP30X the one that comes with the H220-X?