Fanless X570 motherboards?

[mstenholm]

MSI is using that fan to cool not only the chipset, but also the NVME drives on some boards.

I think that it goes for many of the boards and that makes sense.

 

[TheMadDutchDude]

The fan is so quiet that you won't even notice it. It spins at 2500 RPM on my CHVIII, and I can't hear it over the other fans in the system that are spinning at 500-600 RPM.

 

[Joss]

It spins at 2500 RPM on my CHVIII

Can you tweak the fan curve?

 

[Bones]

The fan is so quiet that you won't even notice it. It spins at 2500 RPM on my CHVIII, and I can't hear it over the other fans in the system that are spinning at 500-600 RPM.

I agree - In nearly every instance I've ever known a chipset fan is either very quiet or silent. Active cooling tends to give better overall temps because it's being actively cooled, even a tiny fan blowing a slight breeze is better than nothing at all.
Take into consideration most systems are stuffed into a case with limited ventilation that makes things run a little warmer anyway, it's just a good idea.

 

[aQi]

The fan is so quiet that you won't even notice it. It spins at 2500 RPM on my CHVIII, and I can't hear it over the other fans in the system that are spinning at 500-600 RPM.

Are you using any nvme drives ? In raid to be specific ?

 

[Metroid]

Any plans on beefy, passive heatsinks? Does anyone know?
Because personally I'm not buying a motherboard with a fan on it Reasons? Noise, eventual failure and above all: I don't like it!

You can add a huge heatsink yourself, there was a video in which the guy added a heatsink on the x570. This video

He placed a crap heatsink, you can put a better one, need skills. Also I believe only these set of motherboards will have that fan, starting 2020 -2021, amd will release a am5 platform with ddr5 and pcie5 maybe? hehe triple 555, a possible 554 hehe

 

[biffzinker]

The Asus Pro WS X570-ACE looks nice and clean, but there's a fan in there

At least Asus didn't cheap out, and instead used a Delta brand fan. It has a rated lifespan of at least 60,000 hours.

 

[aQi]

You can add a huge heatsink yourself, there was a video in which the guy added a heatsink on the x570. This video

He placed a crap heatsink, you can put a better one, need skills. Also I believe only these set of motherboards will have that fan, starting 2020 -2021, amd will release a am5 platform with ddr5 and pcie5 maybe? hehe triple 555, a possible 554 hehe

Agree to triple 5

But i want the PCH to be under processor’s IHS just like Intel 10th gen onwards.

 

[Metroid]

Agree to triple 5

But i want the PCH to be under processor’s IHS just like Intel 10th gen onwards.

Well amd will have to improve on that, in this age and time a fan on any chipset is retrogress.

 

[aQi]

Well amd will have to improve on that, in this age and time a fan on any chipset is retrogress.

Dont worry its not easy to expose pcie 4.0 with raid enabled nvme from the PCH. On the other hand Intel is still not on the same. 10th Gen lacks support of PCIe 4.0 as usual.
Meanwhile PCI-SIG announced PCIe 6.0 so there has to be a chance where Intel and Amd might be cooking some PCIe 5.0 recipes. But again its not easy to achieve that especially when you are planning to put PCIe 4/5/6 under the processor’s IHS.

 

[londiste]

The fan is so quiet that you won't even notice it. It spins at 2500 RPM on my CHVIII, and I can't hear it over the other fans in the system that are spinning at 500-600 RPM.

2500 rpm and quiet do not really belong in the same sentence.

 

[TheLostSwede]

At least Asus didn't cheap out, and instead used a Delta brand fan. It has a rated lifespan of at least 60,000 hours.
View attachment 126721

From what I understand, Asus might be the only company to have placed a heatsink next to the fan...
The other boards just have a fan on top of a piece of flat metal.

 

[Joss]

The other boards just have a fan on top of a piece of flat metal

That's another thing that bothers me. The implementation of the fan/heatsink combo is poor.
Also I'm sure a passive heatsink would be an easy solution, but tech companies are more and more run by Marketing departments where plastic covers and RGB lighting make more of a splash than proper cooling.

 

[WHOFOUNDFUNGUS]

Any plans on beefy, passive heatsinks? Does anyone know?
Because personally I'm not buying a motherboard with a fan on it Reasons? Noise, eventual failure and above all: I don't like it!

Was all ready to buy, hot cash in my hot hands to fork out on the brand new ASUS HERO VIII... What's this??? Embedded fans on the board??? uhhh! No dice.

argh I'd have to unscrew all those covers.
The Asus Pro WS X570-ACE looks nice and clean, but there's a fan in there

NO. No, no, no, no. You remove the fan you kill the warranty. The fan is embedded. Which board sells with removable fans? I wanna know.

From what I understand, Asus might be the only company to have placed a heatsink next to the fan...
The other boards just have a fan on top of a piece of flat metal.

I called ASUS about this. I talked to the CEO and production departments and was in consistent correspondence with them about it. 60k hours isn't as long as some might think. I can make a good main board last ten years easily but it isn't very likely I can do that with an embedded fan on it. Say what you will. This is still a bad idea. I can't believe ASUS did this.

You can add a huge heatsink yourself, there was a video in which the guy added a heatsink on the x570. This video

He placed a crap heatsink, you can put a better one, need skills. Also I believe only these set of motherboards will have that fan, starting 2020 -2021, amd will release a am5 platform with ddr5 and pcie5 maybe? hehe triple 555, a possible 554 hehe

Doesn't look like he's running that under a load either, not to mention that he voided the warranty on the board doing that. I rather like Buildzoid's approach to passive cooling on X570 boards.

That's another thing that bothers me. The implementation of the fan/heatsink combo is poor.
Also I'm sure a passive heatsink would be an easy solution, but tech companies are more and more run by Marketing departments where plastic covers and RGB lighting make more of a splash than proper cooling.

That's exactly it, Joss. You hit the nail square on the head. I'm so bummed about this. There is no way in the world ASUS couldn't have opted for a better cooling solution instead of pandering after the competition and following suit. Whatever happened to ASUS' renowned innovation and ingenuity? Nothing unique here. Just more cloning of the same old competitors. I was really hoping ASUS had something better to offer. I was so excited about PCIe 4.0 until I saw how ASUS dealt with it. Gigabyte is the only company that seemed to show a little innovation in this respect and frankly I think they went overboard with their cooling solution and their VRM; but then perhaps they know something we don't. Still I'm not prepared to spend the sort of capital on a system board they're asking and I'm not interested in water blocking my board. We need more options. This is nothing a good heat sink with a little copper tubing can't fix. At the very least they could have offered us a more user friendly solution such as modular cooling fans instead of embedding them. The math on that 60 thousand hours translates to roughly over six years. A main board when properly cared for will easily last ten years. Is it me or does anyone else here smell planned obsoletion?

 

[Zach_01]

2500 rpm and quiet do not really belong in the same sentence.

But they do...
Done some testing like half an hour ago. First of all forget about the fans from 10-15 years ago. X570 fans have way better quality. At least the delta fan that my board has (Same 60K hours like that ASUS = almost 7 straight years). The bios from Aorus pro don’t allow to change the fan curve but has 3 modes. Silent, balanced and performance. The silent mode starts the fan at 58~61C point depending on the temp offset (0~3C). Respectively the balanced at 48~51, and performance at 38~41.

The fan’s lower speed is about 1500rpm. From there it starts and it’s about 18-20%.

Ambient temp around chipset about 29C. Mind that I have an open setup without a case.
So I’ve done this: Stop air flow completely around the chipset area and put on performance mode to see how high the fan would go. The temp gone to 54-55C and fan at 2800rpm which is about 35%. Guess what.... The fan did not make any noise!

Right now its on silent mode (PCH fan 0rpm) with a case fan at 1100rpm (~65cfm) 3 inches from PCH blowing right at it and the graghics card as well. PCH temp at 49-50C. Guess what again... that case fan is making some noise. Very very low but still. And it’s more like air flow noise than motor noise.

That fan I guess can spin up to 6000~6500rpm or even more at 100%. But I really doubt would be the case ever.

I want to do more testing, like making the graphics card produce heat right on to PCH while its fan is on performance mode. Just to go above 2800rpm and see if it’s audiable.


60k hours as I said is roughly 6.9years straight 24/7. If its working 12hours a day or even 6hours a day.... well do the math...

 

[WHOFOUNDFUNGUS]

But they do...
Done some testing like half an hour ago. First of all forget about the fans from 10-15 years ago. X570 fans have way better quality. At least the delta fan that my board has (Same 60K hours like that ASUS = almost 7 straight years). The bios from Aorus pro don’t allow to change the fan curve but has 3 modes. Silent, balanced and performance. The silent mode starts the fan at 58~61C point depending on the temp offset (0~3C). Respectively the balanced at 48~51, and performance at 38~41.

The fan’s lower speed is about 1500rpm. From there it starts and it’s about 18-20%.

Ambient temp around chipset about 29C. Mind that I have an open setup without a case.
So I’ve done this: Stop air flow completely around the chipset area and put on performance mode to see how high the fan would go. The temp gone to 54-55C and fan at 2800rpm which is about 35%. Guess what.... The fan did not make any noise!

Right now its on silent mode (PCH fan 0rpm) with a case fan at 1100rpm (~65cfm) 3 inches from PCH blowing right at it and the graghics card as well. PCH temp at 49-50C. Guess what again... that case fan is making some noise. Very very low but still. And it’s more like air flow noise than motor noise.

That fan I guess can spin up to 6000~6500rpm or even more at 100%. But I really doubt would be the case ever.

I want to do more testing, like making the graphics card produce heat right on to PCH while its fan is on performance mode. Just to go above 2800rpm and see if it’s audiable.
View attachment 132727

60k hours as I said is roughly 6.9years straight 24/7. If its working 12hours a day or even 6hours a day.... well do the math...

Methinks the elephant in the room is being ignored. The fact that a fan over the chip set is completely unnecessary with an appropriate cooling solution should not be overlooked. Isn't that one reason why we moved away from mechanical klunk drives to SSDs?? Can anyone say "No moving parts"? No matter how good a fan might be it will still suffer from wear and tear and will never last as long as a solid and effective heat sink. Friction is a physical reality. Friction = wear and tear and more heat generated. If the life of the chip set is contingent upon whether that fan keeps on running the life of the chip set is in jeopardy. Nobody really knows how good these fans really are because nobody has ran one for 6.9 years. Speculation is cheap. For all we know the fans could be worse than those developed ten or fifteen years ago. It has been my experience that pride of workmanship and durability was focused on more back then than they are today. Today, obsoletion is king. Ever wonder why so many main boards made ten and twenty years ago will still function?

Yeah sure we can toss around ball park figures and numbers all day but we have no clue what that 60K hours is really based upon. Is it based upon a mildly over-clocked CPU, LN2, stock out of the box and only 6 hours a day of active use? Just turning the PC on and leaving it run over night will constitute "usage". C'mon, this is corporate talk where numbers are fudged and inflated. We don't know and they're not telling. All of it is pure speculation. If the fan fails the entire main board has to be RMA'd because it is embedded and that's assuming of course that the system board is still under warranty. So there's no fan swapping here, no optional measures to take while a replacement fan comes in the mail. The least they could have done is made the thing user friendly but they didn't and that's something to consider: Why would they make it so proprietary and NON-user friendly?

You say 60k hours is roughly 6.9 years straight 24/7 but that's not exactly what the manufacturer of that fan is saying. How long will that fan run when it's under intensive load 24/7? One can only speculate. I am well acquainted with how corporations fudge numbers. 6.9 years isn't that long compared to the life expectancy of most system boards when properly cared for. That aside this whole fan issue is completely unnecessary. That is my point and it seems to be the observation of many enthusiasts and builders on the net as well. Manufacturers need to realize this did not go unnoticed and take affirmative action. I really have a strong gut feeling about this and it ain't purdee. This is my view, my opinion, my story, and I'm sticking to it.

 

[Zach_01]

What is the meaning of “purdee” I’m not from US.
I can see a valid point to what you are saying in general, and I’m not disagreeing really. Thats why I don’t relay entirely on what ever any company says. Otherwise my only sentence would be that 60k one. I also wrote a bunch of other stuff too.

I really don’t remember a chipset fan from those days back to spin at 3000rpm completely noiseless. I said I did some testing and continue to do so.

I want to do more testing, like making the graphics card produce heat right on to PCH while its fan is on performance mode. Just to go above 2800rpm and see if it’s audiable.

Well I tried... could not manage to make it go beyond 3000rpm. Still completely noiseless.

My point with all that is if you have proper air flow the fan could be stopped and work only at extreme times.
Right now my set is on Balanced mode, the air temp around the chipset is 28C with a case fan, the PCH fan has stopped and the chipset’s temp is 47C. I think we are making it more of an issue than really is.

 

[WHOFOUNDFUNGUS]

What is the meaning of “purdee” I’m not from US.
I can see a valid point to what you are saying in general, and I’m not disagreeing really. Thats why I don’t relay entirely on what ever any company says. Otherwise my only sentence would be that 60k one. I also wrote a bunch of other stuff too.

I really don’t remember a chipset fan from those days back to spin at 3000rpm completely noiseless. I said I did some testing and continue to do so.


Well I tried... could not manage to make it go beyond 3000rpm. Still completely noiseless.

My point with all that is if you have proper air flow the fan could be stopped and work only at extreme times.
Right now my set is on Balanced mode, the air temp around the chipset is 28C with a case fan, the PCH fan has stopped and the chipset’s temp is 47C. I think we are making it more of an issue than really is.

My apology, Zach. I was using North American red neck slang. "Purdee" is slang for pretty. I should have considered that not everyone reading these boards speaks English as a first language, let alone slang. Yes, it is impressive that a brand new fan can run so quietly at 3000 rpm. Even my Noctua fans make some noise at those speeds. How long that can last I will not surmise. Once the dust gets into the fans it's a whole different story, I find. You may be right about proper air flow. This is a prime factor even in liquid cooling and there's no getting around the fact that air flow is the common denominator of all cooling solutions. Even a good heat sink will benefit immensely from effective air flow. Again, my point is this: Are these fans even necessary? Isn't there a better way of dealing with this thermal issue? And if the fans are in fact essential then why are we not permitted to swap out such a vital component in the event that it fails or, in the event that even better fans are developed in the future? That embedding business really put the nails in the coffin for me, if you'll pardon the expression. Why would these manufacturers resort to such tactics? Again: At the very least the fans should have been made user friendly.

 

[Samiam66]

I dont recall X470 taichi having any fans on board just header plugs

 

[WHOFOUNDFUNGUS]

I dont recall X470 taichi having any fans on board just header plugs

Yup. The X470 series doesn't need them. Then again, you don't have the benefit of genuine PCIE gen 4 with the X470 series. (At least not officially.)

 

[Zach_01]

Yes X570 chipset has X2 the power draw compared to X470, and at this point no one knows really why, other than the official statement about PCI-E gen4, which may not be entirely true. The power draw is true though...

My apology, Zach. I was using North American red neck slang. "Purdee" is slang for pretty. I should have considered that not everyone reading these boards speaks English as a first language, let alone slang.

No harm done! Thanks for clarifying that one...

Are these fans even necessary? Isn't there a better way of dealing with this thermal issue? And if the fans are in fact essential then why are we not permitted to swap out such a vital component in the event that it fails or, in the event that even better fans are developed in the future? That embedding business really put the nails in the coffin for me, if you'll pardon the expression. Why would these manufacturers resort to such tactics? Again: At the very least the fans should have been made user friendly.

I can’t really think of anything other than cutting costs. It is easiest way, and fastest way. Buildzoid‘s idea about passive cooling, as nice and thoughtful as may be... would still add a lot to the cost I think. I don’t want to think that something like this implementation was made other than cutting manufacturing cost. Something like failed fans after warranty expiration just to purchase a whole new board. I want to say it is too much, but then again... who’s to say!

Is the fan necessary? I would say yes and no. A lot of users don’t pay the right attention to general air flow. I do, a lot to the point of unnecessary some times. And I did my study before buying a X570 board. What is common sense to me or you for others is something else if you know what I mean by that, and excuse me for not being clear. It’s hard for me to explain in English.

 

[WHOFOUNDFUNGUS]

Evidently we both did our home work. You decided to buy and I didn't. There is little that ASUS or any company can give me to explain embedding the fan in such a way that it cannot be replaced easily by the end user in the event of a fan failure or warning. A simple warning not to use the system board without the fan could have been printed in the manual and on the warranty as well if it hasn't been done already. Having to return the entire system board in the event of a fan failure or anticipated fan failure is a great inconvenience to the end user. Having to replace the entire unit just after the warranty is expired is nothing short of insult to injury and this certainly needn't happen outside of six years which is twice the time allocated to most warranties on system boards. Either this current approach to addressing the thermals was simply a negligent oversight or something more sinister is going on here. Either way it isn't good for the end user and the board manufacturers should have known that it wasn't going to go unnoticed. A dedicated PC builder/enthusiast will certainly notice something so obvious and begin to wonder if there wasn't a better approach. The real question is just who is supposed to be benefiting from this non-user serviceable design. The end user or the share holders?

 

[Keullo-e]

Is that so big deal to just put a third party fan or a waterblock? Of course a large graphics card could cause issues, but back in the day the noisy HSF flew in the bin and I replaced those with a passive heatsink.

e: or just unplug the fan?

 

[Zach_01]

Is that so big deal to just put a third party fan or a waterblock? Of course a large graphics card could cause issues, but back in the day the noisy HSF flew in the bin and I replaced those with a passive heatsink.

e: or just unplug the fan?

You cant unplug it is embedded on the board. At least the common user cant. But I did all I can to minimize or even eliminate the use of it. I have the board working for a month now and the hours on that fan's counter is very very low compered to how much the PC is ON.
And it can be done with a nice fan blowing right at the HS which can be replaced with less than 10$/€. Not all users should do and think like me though.

 

[Keullo-e]

You cant unplug it is embedded on the board. At least the common user cant. But I did all I can to minimize or even eliminate the use of it. I have the board working for a month now and the hours on that fan's counter is very very low compered to how much the PC is ON.
And it can be done with a nice fan blowing right at the HS which can be replaced with less than 10$/€. Not all users should do and think like me though.

Embedded, you mean the fan's wires are soldered on the board?