PC World - USA (2019-10)

84 PCWorld OCTOBER 2019

FEATURE GRAPHICS CARDS: REFERENCE VS. CUSTOM

other, blower-style reference cards eliminate

potential overheating concerns.

There’s a performance trade-off, how-

ever, as blower-style designs often run

much hotter and louder than coolers with

axial fans that dump the hot air into your

case. (Compare the Radeon RX 5700

reference card’s temperatures [go.pcworld.

com/x57] versus the temperatures of the

Sapphire Pulse RX 5700 [go.pcworld.com/

prx], an affordable custom dual-axial design

with a mere $10 premium.) GPUs can hit

higher clock speeds at lower temperatures,

so reference designs can leave potential

performance on the table.

Nvidia’s current GeForce RTX 20-series

graphics cards bucked tradition by switching

to a dual-axial fan design (go.pcworld.com/

dax). Nvidia also recently began selling

reference designs itself in the form of luxuri-

ous, metal-clad GeForce “Founders Edition”

graphics cards, ending the trend of allowing

AIB partners like EVGA and Asus to sell

reference cards.

Founders Edition cards look gorgeous and

perform well, but Nvidia doesn’t overclock its

cards as aggressively as many custom AIB

models do. Also, while the dual-axial cooler is

a big improvement on blower-style reference

designs, custom cards still often hit lower

temperatures.

Compatibility is a big win for reference

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2070 Super Founders Edition.