Last week, Gigabyte released the GeForce RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 AORUS Master graphics cards. A distinctive feature of the new products was an additional fan included in the kit, which can be used to supplement the graphics card cooling system if desired. According to the owners, the effect of installing the fourth fan does not exceed 2 °C.
Image Source: Gigabyte
«To further improve cooling, the card also features a dedicated 120mm RGB fan that can be placed on the back of the card to exhaust air, a design that is reminiscent of the Asus ROG RTX 5080 Astral’s built-in cooler solution. It’s a practical addition, but not an elegant one, as it means having to deal with additional cables. Oddly, the card itself doesn’t include a power connector for an additional fan,” HardwareZone reports.
Image source: HardwareZone
Researchers at Glitched Online ran a series of quick tests on the graphics card with a fourth fan and found that installing it reduced the GPU temperature by no more than 2°C. During the test with the fan installed, the temperature fluctuated between 66–67°C, and without the additional fan, it fluctuated between 68–69°C.
Image source: Glitched Online
A similar design had been used in the Galax SG series for several years previously. However, unlike Gigabyte’s implementation, Galax integrated the fourth fan and its cable into the card’s design.
It seems that the fourth fan trend has also affected other manufacturers, such as the RTX 50 series graphics cards – Asus ROG Astral and MSI Special Edition.