EVGA Introduces iCX GPU Cooling Technology; Response to GTX 1080 Heating Issues?

By Edward Leano, Christian Post Contributor Friday, February 17, 2017

EVGA promises to deliver "Peace of Mind Gaming" to PC gamers with its new graphics card tuning technology that offers better cooling efficiency and control. The graphics card company has just announced its "iCX Technology," which will find its way into the Nvidia GTX 10-series.

EVGA's new technology monitors the temperature of the graphics processing unit (GPU), the voltage regulator module (VRM) and the memory chips on the video card. It uses nine thermal sensors to report on the status of these components, and the EVGA Precision XOC software can display these to the user and make adjustments in real time.

Overclocking a video card involves increasing the voltage while making sure that no component of the card overheats. In a typical graphics card, however, temperature information is limited to the GPU and memory chips, as these are the only components that may have their own temperature sensors. Normally in that case, the monitoring software will compensate by increasing the cooling by raising the speed of all the fans, which leads to a noisy video card.

The iCX design solves this by having a separate control for the two fans. With nine thermal sensors, the Precision XOC tuning software has more information on which components on the card are heating up. When the GPU and memory components are getting hot, the left-side fan can be speeded up. If the VRM side of the card is generating too much heat, the right-side fan will adjust. This ensures that the fans on the video card are just at the exact speed that they each need to be, keeping fan noise to the minimum.

Along with the additional sensors and software features, the iCX also improved on the heatsink design. The new heatsinks have a lot of openings for easier airflow, and the fins are bent at the bottom to have more surface contact. In addition, the cooler unit also has a simple light-emitting diode (LED) display that serves as a visual warning in case a component is overheating.

This development could be EVGA's safeguard against a repeat of last year's incidents in which some of their GTX 10-x cards reportedly overheated and, in some cases, caught on fire.

Watch YouTube reviewer JayzTwoCents' report on his hands-on experience with the new cooling system below.