A gamer builds a passively cooled RTX A2000
The extravagance of modern graphics card cooling solutions is indeed striking, with even the RTX 4070, boasting a mere 200W TGP, receiving the three-fan treatment. However, concurrently, some enthusiasts are committed to expelling fans from various components of their PCs. According to Tom’s Hardware, RevocCases, a user on the SFF.Network forum, has transformed its RTX A2000 graphics card into a passively cooled variant.
The RTX A2000 is a half-height, dual-slot professional graphics card based on the GA106 core. It features 6GB of 192-bit GDDR6 memory and a 12GB memory version. With a power consumption of only 70W and no need for an additional power supply, it’s likely the reason RevocCases chose to modify this particular card.
For the heatsink, RevocCases opted for Arctic’s Accelero S1 Rev. 2, equipped with four 6mm copper heat pipes and an extensive array of cooling fins. This passive heatsink was originally designed for AMD Radeon HD 3850 and NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT graphics cards from 2008-2009, making it relatively antiquated. To adapt the heatsink to the new card, RevocCases crafted a 3mm copper plate as a new base to cover the GPU and memory components.
Overall, the aesthetic transformation by RevocCases is quite intriguing. As for performance, although the GA106 is also employed in the RTX 3060, one should not expect this modified card to deliver equivalent performance due to power and cooling constraints. It is worth noting that, as the Accelero S1 Rev. 2 heatsink is considerably taller than typical graphics cards, compatibility with PC cases may warrant attention.