When was the last time you bought a card with the reference cooler?

Was thinking recently when people said the new Radeon coolers looked a little garish. So I was wondering if it really makes any difference, since almost every mid-to-high end card will come with a custom setup from the manufacturer.

Well, apart from the Titan; which nVidia makes OEMs sell with the reference cooler and the 7990 which already came with a hefty cooling setup, when was the last time you bought a card with the reference cooler?

don't give a monkeys what the cooler looks like, ability and noise is what matters for me. Got bored of windowed cases about errr 10 years ago

I always try to buy reference cards with reference coolers, so much easier to get water blocks for and there are usually unlocked for overvolting and overclocking.

Last reference cooler I bought was a Radeon 2900xt...my god was that thing noisy and power-hungry(more to do with the card than the cooler tho). Never bought a reference cooler since

I think it was probably an 8800GTX I bought back in 2008. I always prefer to get a decent cooler now, even if it means getting a lesser model card.

My previous two cards had the reference cooler. It's irrelevant to me though because as soon as i have made sure they work ok, off comes the cooler and on goes the waterblock.

I choose reference cards intentionally because unlike modified cards, they actually make an effort to blow all the heat out the back, instead of blowing it all around my motherboard. All I care about GPU cooling is that it's quiet enough, and it keeps the GPU cool enough for it to run at stock clocks.

As per some of the previous comments, I chose a reference card, basically because I knew that if I had to go watercooling down the line (which I did)
sourcing a full cover block is so much easier!
Not to mention the blower got a little noisy at 60%

My current card (HD 6950) came with a reference cooler, but I replaced it with a custom cooler as soon as I could get hold of one just to quieten the thing down.

Bought the evga 580 that went on offer for £110 otherwise I would have got a non reference design for the extra cost.
I plan on getting an aftermarket cooler fairly soon just deciding on which one at the moment.

Many cards ago... Maybe my MX200 but thats when reference coolers were this:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/video...x200-small.jpg

Picked up a reference 7970 just to see what the difference would be compared to msi / gigabyte / his cards - aye carumba it's like a little pci-e concorde! I buried it in the garden to try and silence it as even when it was unplugged it still whined!!

There is no reason to buy a reference cooler unless your deaf - it's not worth saving £20 odd in my opinion!!

Butuz

My current card is using a stock cooler, was purely due to cost at the time, since it doesn't look great, isn't quiet, and isn't overly good at keeping the card cool :P (I mean, copes with anything at full whack, but is really rather loud by that point :P)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Butuz

Picked up a reference 7970 just to see what the difference would be compared to msi / gigabyte / his cards - aye carumba it's like a little pci-e concorde! I buried it in the garden to try and silence it as even when it was unplugged it still whined!!

There is no reason to buy a reference cooler unless your deaf - it's not worth saving £20 odd in my opinion!!

Butuz

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20 odd quid? Come on, there's way more difference than that between a reference and decent third party cooler lol... :P

The last card I had with a reference cooler was a Leadtek NVidia 7900GS. I've had cards by XFX(5850) and ASUS(6670) since then that have had non-reference coolers, although the XFX one wasn't a huge amount different, just having what looked like a better fan. The ASUS one is quite fancy for such a low class of card. I did replace an old 6600GT (non reference too) with a Palit GeFore 220 a while back, but I'm not sure whether it was reference or not, it seemed a little different, but wasn't overly fancy, being a very low end card.

3 out of my 4 previous cards have been stock coolers. 6950 when it came out then a custom cooled saphire 6950 to xfire with. Dumped them for a 6990 but fitted with a water block as the stock cooler is a monster howler and then a 6970 with stock cooler to tri-fire but eventually replaced it with a water block as it was the loudest thing in my machine while gaming when it span up.

Last time i bought GPU with reference cooler was my old good Radeon 9600XT :)

Mine was a 6850.

i had a gtx 260 with reference cooler, but I think a lot of the cards around that time were using reference designs

A couple of years ago - an Geforce 7600 GS . It's also my current card.

Today :P
Was on offer and from reviews etc it seemed to do it's job.

All the time. They are the only ones you can really use with waterblocks.

Last time I had a GPU with a fan was 2005.

Never bought a reference cooler card in my life. They are hotter, noisier and die quicker.

A Geforce 4 Ti4600 back in 2002/3 Everything after that has been custom.

Cannot remember the last time I bought a reference card, always try and wait for better coolers.

Personally I was put off reference cards after I bought a ref 8800GT for one system and an ASUS 8800GT for another. The ASUS card is still going strong, tho it's not used for games these days and the reference card died just out of warranty. Plus, it was bloody noisy compared to the ASUS card lol

Last one was a HD 4870. Before that a nVidia 7950GX2 then my first ever card, nVidia 8600GT

I don't even consider refrence cooling nowadays.

I don't have as high noise tolerance as I had 'back in the days' anymore.

That also mean than when looking at prices of GPUs - I do only look at prices of 'good enough' non-reference cards.
When I say that i.e. I will consider buying certain GPU once it hit i.e. 150e - I do mean a GPU with quiet and effeficiant non-reference cooler.

Big fan of MSI's Twin Frozr designs myself althought I do like the Sapphire TOXIC edition of the R9 280X. To answer the question.. Never!

You can't go wrong with the Msi Twin Frozr. The HIS ICEQ X2 is the best 2 slot cooler available by far - but most people seem to glide on by the HIS cards.

Butuz

Yesterday!

Got a gtx 770 in ' Today only deals ' on Scan, bargin.

Nvidia Geforce GT 330. Lol.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ZaO

20 odd quid? Come on, there's way more difference than that between a reference and decent third party cooler lol... :P

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http://prntscr.com/24zz4h

Reference coolers aren't much cheaper anymore. If you wanted to get a reference 780, you'd need to spend more!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrRockliffe

http://prntscr.com/24zz4h

Reference coolers aren't much cheaper anymore. If you wanted to get a reference 780, you'd need to spend more!

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hmm.. last brand new card i bought was gtx 670. decent third party coolers were definitely a lot more then - 40-50 quid more i think. maybe it's changed now!

2 months ago. My first GFX c ard. ZOTAC GTX670 :D

was a very good card, Boosted to 1084 with decent Temps.

My current card Asus GTX 260 is stock :-S - I melted/fried my old system (Stock 6600 GT - power supply failure) and had to scramble a new PC together - That was 6 years ago... Time for a new build I think