Are single fan 2060's worth even considering?

They make noise, too.

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Silent but deadly
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Are single fan 2060's worth even considering?

Post by Silent but deadly » Tue Oct 08, 2019 5:18 am

The time has finally come to upgrade my Asus GTX 670 Direct CU II Top.

When looking for a card fit to replace such a fantastic and quiet GPU, I naturally made Asus my first port of call. The Asus GTX 1660 Ti Strix immediately caught my eye as it had everything I wanted and could reasonably hope for from the current mid range of GPUs. After some further research into other brands, the Strix card was still leading the pack... except for the price. The 1660 Ti Strix goes for £319 and up in the UK (where as rivals such as the various MSI offerings caan be had for around £280). For that price, there are several 2060's available, some of which have dual fans but most only have a single fan.

It seams to be a trend with the current crop of midrange Nvidia GPUs that there are several OEM versions that have single fan cooling designs. In the past, mid to high range GPUs that had a single fan yet where still quiet pretty much didn't exist and I'm wondering whether the same holds true.

Are any of the following single fan (or dual fan) 2060's worth considering vs. the 1660 Ti Strix (which appears to be the quietest 1660 Ti around)? - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/products/vi ... &X=0,32000

NOTE: I don't care about Ray Tracing.

Abula
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Re: Are single fan 2060's worth even considering?

Post by Abula » Tue Oct 08, 2019 6:40 am

The only dual fan RTX2060 that i would recommend is the MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z 6 GB Review, if you go to triple then there is also the Asus RTX2060 Strix, but neither will be the typical msrp card.

CA_Steve
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Re: Are single fan 2060's worth even considering?

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Oct 08, 2019 10:14 am

Note that AMD RX 5500 cards are arriving "sometime in q4" and Nvidia's GTX 1650 Ti Super and GTX 1660 Super are rumored to release sometime later this month to compete against AMD, you might want to hold off a little bit. Could see some nice price decreases in the mid-range gfx card space.

Silent but deadly
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Re: Are single fan 2060's worth even considering?

Post by Silent but deadly » Wed Oct 09, 2019 11:01 am

Abula wrote:The only dual fan RTX2060 that i would recommend is the MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z 6 GB Review, if you go to triple then there is also the Asus RTX2060 Strix, but neither will be the typical msrp card.
Just to clarify, any higher end 2060's are way out of my budget. I was hoping to stay under £280, which is the lowest I've seen the 1660 Ti Strix for but if I were to say "what the hell" and stretch my budget to the Strix's going rate of £319, then that brings the low end 2060's into range... I just can't decide whether the added performance is worth the comprimise in terms of acoustics.
CA_Steve wrote:Note that AMD RX 5500 cards are arriving "sometime in q4" and Nvidia's GTX 1650 Ti Super and GTX 1660 Super are rumored to release sometime later this month to compete against AMD, you might want to hold off a little bit. Could see some nice price decreases in the mid-range gfx card space.
Thanks for the heads up. I didn't realise that the next batch of GPUs were being released so soon.

My only criteria in terms of buying time is that I want it this year. As for the RX 5500, I'd be a bit hesitant to go with AMD for my GPU as I've read that the 5700's have issues with emulation, which is a pretty big deal for me, and that AMD GPU's traditionally have higher TDPs/Temps. Mind you, the same was true of their CPUs before Ryzen came along and I have been very happy with my 1700x.

SometimesWarrior
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Re: Are single fan 2060's worth even considering?

Post by SometimesWarrior » Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:14 pm

TechPowerUp reviewed a half dozen 1660 Super cards today. The one single fan model, by Asus, was both 18C hotter and 11dB louder than the quietest dual-fan model by MSI. However that single fan model by Asus had a joke of a cooler: just an aluminum block, like an Intel stock heatsink.

The single fan 1660/2060 cards from EVGA have real heatpipe+fins graphics card heatsinks, only shorter than usual. If you swap the single fan with your own 140mm or 2x120mm it might be good enough. In my experience, what matters most is the amount of heatsink surface area with active cooling, and the fan speed profile (which you can often configure yourself). I would have bought a single fan 2060 EVGA for myself, back when they were $50 cheaper than every other 2060, except 1) I saw many complaints about coil whine, and 2) they only have a single DisplayPort connector.

aaronhooker
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Re: Are single fan 2060's worth even considering?

Post by aaronhooker » Sun Jul 19, 2020 9:51 pm

Abula wrote:
Tue Oct 08, 2019 6:40 am
The only dual fan RTX2060 that i would recommend is the MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z 6 GB Review, if you go to triple then there is also the Asus RTX2060 Strix, but neither will be the typical msrp card.
I second that.

Kay Burton
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Re: Are single fan 2060's worth even considering?

Post by Kay Burton » Tue Sep 15, 2020 11:41 pm

I have an MSI graphics card. 2 fans that only activate when the graphics card heats up. But they work almost silently. The sound is very quiet. She is already 4 years old, but I still do not complain and am in no hurry to change. Works great.

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