Cooling Arctic Accelero Xtreme IV viable with no fan?

I've seen on Arctic's site that they rate their passive by design S3 for 135W, and from the one test I saw it does a very good job of it too. I've tried to Google up some experiences about any variant of the Xtreme running with no fans, but it seems nobody has them and I feel like I shouldn't just assume that the larger fin array will simply scale up to cover my 180W card passively.

Has anyone here seen a test or tried to do this per chance, or is anyone willing to run a quick test on any card that takes ~180W or more? My gut feeling tells me that it should be okay but I'd like to base a purchase decision on something a bit more substantial.

While I normally just love any opportunity to go fanless for the sake of it, I do actually have a practical reason for wanting this. My case will accommodate the length of the cooler, but it is too thick to fit with the fan assembly on.

I'm also keeping in mind the smaller components on the card that might be relying on incidental airflow, and I'm hoping that the two Noctua A14s I bought as front intakes will be able to take care of that.

Any input is hugely appreciated.

 

I personally wouldn't. It's not just the GPU core that you have to worry about with temps. The VRM circuitry gets extremely warm too, and is something that will require more cooling.

I remember my 980 (pre-production GALAX HOF card) had no heatsinks on the VRM but had a 120mm fan blowing on them at 100 CFM, they still got well into the 90c range with ease.

 

Thanks guys! I'm definitely planning to stick some tiny heatsinks anywhere that the stock cooler would cover, provided that there is enough clearance. Even if I can't find specific ones for the application, generic ones seem easy enough to get from somewhere like AliExpress. And I'm totally on board with the bottom intake idea too, could even zip tie a fan to the front half of the heatsink that overhangs the PSU.

I really appreciate your offer Crapman, I'm hoping I won't have to take you up on it but if push comes to shove I might send you a PM.

 

No way. The only way you could successfully cool such a GPU passively would be to have it sit at idle all the time, which kinda defeats the purpose, or to have it in the path of some serious case airflow, which also defeats the purpose. If you look at the design of the S3, you can see that the fins are aligned for case airflow. The Accelero Xtreme is designed specifically for active cooling (not to mention for much more powerful GPUs).

I'd also say that your biggest concern will be the buildup of warm air in the chassis, which will have a huge impact on the efficiency of your heatsink. With my case open I was able to run my GPU below 60C under continuous load; with the case closed it's up to 75C (admittedly with the GPU fans spinning at 700rpm or so, haha). Still, that's a good 10C+ difference and that's with an actively cooled heatsink.

By all means try it if you must, but I'd put my faith in physics on this one. I'd be very surprised if you could do much at all with a 760 that's passively cooled.

 

Oh, old sig, I'm running a 1080 now but Nvidia's card power figures for both are within 10 watts of each other so I'm expecting the TDP to also be similar. I hear you on the other points like the fin arrangement and trapped heat. While I don't mind sticking a fan on the part of the heatsink that's available or flooding the whole case with positive pressure, there's also not much in the way of exhaust down there.

 

I did consider that, I'm just not sure it would ever spin up. I guess if I'm really stressing the components to where cooling begins to matter they might draw enough power to wake up the PSU fan too, will just have to see.