Silent PC enthusiast and redditor cancel Showing off a very interesting AMD Radeon RX 6400 mod (h/t fanless tech). Modifications consisted of removing the stock active cooler, precision machining a 3mm copper cold plate and mount (covering both GPU and memory), and then clamping onto the Arctic Accelero S1 passive cooler (discontinued) meant In testing, the project was a resounding success. Under load, the GPU was running just over 50 degrees Celsius.
Silence is gold, so passive PC systems have a strong following. However, using passive coolers to cool more powerful PC components dominate your buildWe have seen this with some Recent implementation of passive coolers and cases. But to be fair, the revocases RX 6400 mod doesn’t fit in this category.
The Radeon RX 6400 is a 54W graphics card, so it doesn’t have the severe challenge of passive cooling technology. Instead, we can say that the lower TGP makes the card a comfortable target for moderate passive cooling adaptations. In the images shared by revocases, we can see that the passively cooled (original) low-profile Radeon operated above a comfortable average GPU temperature of 54 degrees Celsius (60 hot spots) at full load. Unfortunately, the off-the-shelf selection of passive GPU coolers is very limited or we recommend using smaller ones.
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In the image, the RX 6400 PCB is completely dwarfed by the Arctic Accelero S1, which may seem somewhat silly outside the context of a PC. However, last November we reported that an Intel Arc A380 (>75W) was cooled by the same Arctic Accelero S1. In the visual context of a purely passive build, the card looked reasonable. It was mounted next to a Noctua NH-P1 cooling CPU.
From another angle, a commercial passive card like the Palit GeForce GTX 1650 KalmX is balanced at 138 x 178 x 38 mm, and the GPU can be seen at around 80 degrees Celsius under load. The Palit isn’t much smaller than the 138 x 215 x 33mm Arctic Accelero S1 cooler (although the extra cards add to it’s bulk).
The massive efficiency gains touted in the latest AMD and Nvidia graphics architectures mean more compact passive commercial graphics cards will hit the market. Graphics card makers may be drawn to his premium passive that quiet PC enthusiasts may pay for something more capable than his RX 6400, Arc A380, GTX 1650, and others.
