A small form factor PC enthusiast has shared details about how they modified an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti for absolutely silent running. Mysteriously named Redditor a0910115172 shared plenty of images of the fanless modded Asus TUF RTX 4060 Ti and some benchmarking insights (h/t FanlessTech). In brief, even when massively downclocked to operate within a 65W power envelope, this card was superior to commercial alternatives like the KalmX series from Palit.
As our hat-tipped friends at FanlessTech would confirm, there are lots of reasons why a person might want to go fanless. In the case of Redditor a0910115172, reasons such as “reduced dust accumulation and a better experience for activities like listening to music” were put forward. However, they also enjoyed the fanless PC building challenge.
Previously, a0910115172 said they had tried to shoehorn an RTX 4070 into their fanless build, but it was asking too much. Primarily, the Redditor explained that the RTX 4070’s minimum voltage “was limited to 910mV, resulting in suboptimal power efficiency at low power consumption.” Stepping down to an RTX 4060 Ti opened up a new minimum voltage of 860mV via the vBIOS (the same minimum as an RTX 4060 non-Ti GPU).
Experience with Fanless on ASUS TUF RTX4060Ti : Underclocking and Temperature Performance Test from r/sffpc
Redditor a0910115172 also explained that they chose an Asus TUF RTX 4060 Ti as the foundation for this fanless mod because it offers one of the largest heatsinks for this GPU. The heatsink measures two slots thick and 30cm (12 inches) in length and is threaded by four heat pipes.
The fanless SFF PC enthusiast used a pair of commands to restrict the GPU and memory clocks to keep power consumption at 65W or so. After executing nvidia-smi -lgc 0,1200 and nvidia-smi -lmc 0,5001, the RTX 4060 Ti was GPU clock locked at 1,200 MHz, and memory clock locked to 5,001 MHz, says the Redditor. This way, the system ran very stably, and the GPU temperature reached nearly 90 degrees Celsius, with a hotspot temperature of 102 degrees Celsius.
Performance was impacted by these forced clocks, with the GPU achieving a Time Spy graphics score of just 6,621. According to 3DMark, owners of this GPU should expect to gain a graphics score of 13,495 on average. a0910115172 wasn’t satisfied with the initial result, so he tweaked the GPU core clock up to 1,800 MHz, boosting the Time Spy graphics score to 8,588. Even with new graphite thermal pads, the faster GPU clock meant temperatures rose to a maximum GPU temperature of 90 degrees Celsius, with a hotspot temperature of 103 degrees Celsius.
If you are looking for a passive modern GPU in 2024, your choices are limited. In January, we were pleased to see Palit introduce a new member of the KalmX passive GPU family. However, it was powered by the rather anemic RTX 3050 6GB. For reference, the average 3DMark Time Spy graphics score for the RTX 3050 6GB is 4,849, and models with several fans and factory will skew it overclocks. Still, the passive RTX 4060 Ti DIY project is leagues ahead.