OCTOBER 2019 PCWorld 87hardware—like sensors, extra thermal pads,
and dedicated VRM or memory chip cooling—
to drive temperatures even lower, or reduce
noise levels. Some models, like EVGA’s
GeForce RTX 20-series “FTW3” lineup, tie
individual fan speeds to different sensors, so
that each bit of hardware gets devoted cooling
based on their thermal needs.
If you’re an overclocking enthusiast, you can
find custom graphics cards that skip the reference
PCBs designed by Nvidia and AMD to offer fully
bespoke hardware intended to get you the best
possible performance. You can find models with
beefed-up power delivery systems, fuse protec-
tion, additional PCB layers, and dual-BIOS
switches for different performance profiles and
easy recovery from overclocking disasters. These
tend to be more expensive, though.
Of course, more general extra features are
another big advantage for custom graphics
cards. Custom RGB LED lighting is basically
table stakes at this point. You can also find
nice quality-of-life upgrades like metal back-
plates, additional display connections, fan
headers to tie a case fan’s speed to your GPU
temperature, replaceable shrouds or axial
fans, and more. The sky’s the limit, though
many AIB vendors require you to install their
proprietary software to access some of the
features or overclock your graphics card.
The biggest downside to custom graph-
ics cards? They almost always cost more than
reference models. Most people would be
happy with a custom design that costs $10A blowout render of the Asus ROG Strix 1660 Ti’s cooler design.