iXBT Labs - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465, GTX 470 Graphics Cards

Cooling

As I already said, Inno3D GeForce GTX 465 1024MB has a reference cooler that we have already reviewed. I'll just remind that GeForce GTX 4xx series cards come with mediocre reference coolers, so they heat up a lot and make much noise.

Now let's take a closer look at original custom coolers made by Inno3D and Gainward.

Gainward GeForce GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5 Golden Sample
As you may know, the reference cooler is quite noisy, because it has a single turbine fan on the one edge of the graphics cards that drives air through the entire heatsink. What we have here is a massive heatpiped heatsink divided into two parts, each cooled down by a dedicated fan. Both fans are slow, but provide enough airflow for efficient cooling. Thanks to this, the cooler is quite efficient and quiet. The only drawback is that the cover of this dual-slot cooler is located right next to the third slot. Considering that fans need some space for air intake as well, the third slot can only accommodate a very small and flat expansion card.

Inno3D GeForce GTX 470 Hawk 1280MB
That's king-size for you. This is a solution from Arctic Cooling that is also known for IceQ coolers on HIS graphics cards. It's also quiet, slow and highly efficient. But it occupies one more adjacent slot -- two adjacent slots in total. Make sure that your enclosure has enough space before you buy this graphics card.

Traditionally, we monitored temperatures using EVGA Precision (based on RivaTuner).

Gainward GeForce GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5 Golden Sample

Inno3D GeForce GTX 470 Hawk 1280MB

Inno3D GeForce GTX 465 1024MB

Obviously, Inno3D GeForce GTX 470 Hawk 1280MB is the most efficient. It never allowed core temperature to exceed 65 degrees Celsius. Compare that with the reference cooler of GeForce GTX 465. Even the cut-down core didn't help cool down this card more efficiently and core temperature was above 80°C. Gainward's cooler also showed very good results, considering the graphics card was factory-overclocked.

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