SPCR

EVGA - a manufacturer I've learnt to avoid - has announced a new motherboard, the Z77. The thing is, this model features a fan cooling solution for the chipset. I haven't seen a fan on a motherboard since maybe nforce2! Other producers don't seem to need active cooling for this (or any) chipset.

http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.a ... oards&sw=5

I hope this doesn't become a trend...

I've seen a few of the X79 boards with fans, too - looks like they're back in fashion for this generation...

Thing is, Z77 doesn't need a fan. Neither does X79, probably.

And even if, there are these things called... heatpipes.

This is just a bad, bad trend. It needs to die, quickly.

Such boards are designed to take multiple video cards so airflow around the chipset heatsink can be poor. On top of that, a few high end gpus can radiate a fair amount of heat so I think the use of a fan is justified in this case. While they could have used heatpipes to move the heat away, with so many features on these boards there is little real estate left for elaborate heatsink designs.

Lack of space? Really?

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... x?pid=4169
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... x?pid=4139 <-- that's a standard ATX motherboard BTW.
http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Produc ... 03&LanID=0 <-- that's a standard ATX motherboard BTW.

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http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_ ... 7V_DELUXE/
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_ ... /P8Z77_WS/
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?M ... ofessional

The heatpipe stops short of the PCH (Z77 chip) not because of lack of space but because it's not really necessary.


Z77 PCH has a TDP of 6.7W.

I was referring to the EVGA board where the first pcie slot is close to the cpu leaving little space for a third heatsink. The boards you posted have fewer pcie 16x slots leaving enough space in between for the chipset heatsink to breathe plus some of them connect it to a third heatsink in between the cpu socket and first pcie slot. The low tdp of the chipset is mostly irrelevant. 800 watts worth of gpu will heat up the southbridge heatsink a lot more than the southbridge itself will.