Cooling
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Active(cooler). Active in this case is called forced air cooling — that is, cooling due to the outside air supplied by the cooler. The role of a cooler can be performed both by a classic fan with a radiator, and by a closed case into which air is pumped by a special impeller (“blower”). The variant with the body is typical for high-end models; it is quite complicated and expensive, but very effective, besides, hot air is usually removed not just from the graphics card case, but outside the system unit, and does not affect the rest of the system components. In general, active cooling (of all types) provides a good balance of characteristics: it turns out to be much cheaper and easier to install than water systems, and at the same time much more efficient than passive radiators. Therefore, most modern video cards are equipped with coolers or blowers.
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Passive(radiator). Passive cooling systems are called in which heat is dissipated in a natural way, without additional blowing or forced circulation of the liquid. Radiators used in such systems have the form of ribbed metal plates — this form increases the efficiency of heat removal. To further improve efficiency, radiators can be supplemented with heat pipes — closed tubes through which the coolant naturally moves. The main advantage of passive systems is the complete absence of noise; in addition, they do not consume energy and are extremely reliab
...le (there is practically nothing to break in the radiators). On the other hand, such systems are less efficient than coolers and, moreover, water blocks, and therefore they are mainly used in relatively low-power video cards. There are exceptions, but in them the radiator has to be made quite bulky, which can make installation difficult.
— Liquid(water block). Cooling performed by the circulation of water (or other liquid coolant) through the tubes in contact with the components of the graphics card. Such systems are extremely efficient because water has a higher heat capacity than air; in addition, the noise level during operation of the water blocks is extremely low. Their main disadvantage is the difficulty in installation: for the operation of such a graphics card, a water cooling system is required, which in itself is quite expensive and is usually not included in the package. As a result, pure liquid cooling is the prerogative of individual high-end graphics cards aimed at enthusiasts or professional users.
— Hybrid(water block + cooler). A cooling system that includes two modules at once — air (cooler) and water (water block). The specifics of both are described in detail above; here it is worth noting that in this case, the package usually includes not just a water block on the board itself, but a full-fledged liquid cooling system (LCS) — with an external radiator, pump and other components. Thus, the graphics card comes with a fully functional, ready-to-use cooling system.
Usually, hybrid systems are designed in this way: the GPU and a number of other "hottest" elements of the board are covered by a water block, the air cooler is responsible for the rest. The main point of this division is to shift from the water block to the cooler a non-critical load that does not require maximum performance; this has a positive effect on the uniformity and efficiency of liquid cooling. On the other hand, hybrid systems are quite expensive, which is why they are used much less frequently than traditional water blocks for connecting to LSS, and only in top-level solutions.Fans
The number of individual fans provided in the graphics card cooling system (if any, see "Cooling").
In general, the more powerful the video adapter, the more efficient cooling it needs. So
one fan is typical mainly for devices of the initial and inexpensive middle class,
two — from medium to advanced, and
three or
more are almost an unambiguous sign of a premium-level solution. At the same time, there is no strict dependence here, and models with similar characteristics may have a different number of fans (especially since the cooling efficiency is determined not only by the number of fans, but also by their diameter). But what this parameter unambiguously affects is the length of the graphics card and, accordingly, the amount of space required to install it.
Number of slots
The number of slots occupied by the graphics card on the back of the system unit.
This indicator allows you to estimate the amount of space required to install a video adapter. It is relevant in the light of the fact that modern video cards can have a fairly extensive set of connectors, and for this set there has long been little standard lanyard for 1 slot. This is especially true for powerful performant models. Thus, many solutions, especially mid-range and top-end ones, occupy
two or even
three slots at once.
Separately, it is worth touching on models for which the characteristics indicate a fractional number of slots — usually 2.5 or 2.7. This detail is provided by the manufacturer for promotional purposes — as confirmation that the graphics card is smaller than a full-fledged 3-slot solution. However, in fact there is no difference between these options: adapters for 2.5 or 2.7 slots still block the third slot (albeit partially), making it unusable.
Length
The total length of the graphics card.
In this case, the length means the size of the device from the plate with connectors (which is attached to the back wall of the system unit) to the opposite side. The plate itself and the outwardly protruding connectors are usually not taken into account.
Data on the length of the graphics card is needed primarily in order to assess whether there is enough space for it in a particular case. In addition, longer boards, usually, have more advanced characteristics (although there is no hard dependence here, and video adapters of similar class may have different lengths). As for specific values, the most compact solutions nowadays have a size of
150 – 200 mm or
less ; an indicator of
200 – 250 mm can still be considered relatively small,
250 – 290 mm — medium, and many models (mostly advanced) have a length
of more than 290 mm.
