Should you buy single-fan GPUs in 2024?

Manufacturers are still making single-fan GPUs despite the latest generation of graphics cards becoming excessively power-hungry. While the form factor has now been shrunk to compact ITX cards and blower-edition offerings (which are super rare), you can easily stumble across a single-fan card if you don't want to spend any more than the launch MSRP.

Are such compact single-fan GPUs worth your cash in 2024? The answer can be a tough one, especially given much of the information isn't available for each SKU. In this article, I'll try to give you a rough idea of what to expect based on my experience with single-fan cards.

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Single-fan GPUs push the thermal limits to the maximum

A Zotac single-fan GPU (Image via Zotac)

While opting for single-fan cards, you miss out on extra heatsink mass given the card is now more compact than the traditional dual-fan alternative. Moreover, most after-market open-air GPUs rely on active cooling to remove most of the pent-up heat. This capacity also gets halved when going for one of these cards.

Given how demanding the RTX 40 and 30 series GPUs are, this can be a serious problem. It's also part of the reason why you won't get a single-fan edition of anything above an RTX 3070.

Single-fan GPUs can at max handle power ratings up to 200W. If you are getting a deal on a compact card with one fan that draws more than that at peak load, avoid it. The limited cooling capacity can choke the level of performance you can expect.

I found some interesting single-fan RTX 3060 and 4060 GPUs like the MSI Aero ITX and Zotac Gaming Solo that are perfect for mid-range systems. Check our detailed list of compact RTX 40 series graphics cards to get the top recommendations.

You won't find any beefier card being packed with a single-fan cooler anyway. Most ITX case manufacturers are bundling their cases with larger GPU slots, like in the Corsair 2000D I reviewed a while back. You won't face a major bottleneck in this regard.

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Are blower-edition GPUs worth it in 2024?

Blower-edition RTX 3090 GPUs from Gigabyte (Image via Amazon)

Blower-edition cards are one of the significant avenues of how single-fan GPUs are still alive in 2024. The Nvidia Founder Edition video cards used this design up until the GTX 10 series, following which they were shelved in 2018. This makes sense given the added heat output of the newer video cards.

The golden age of single-fan GPUs and blower-edition cards ended in 2017, however. Back in the day, some compact GPUs like the Gigabyte Eagle OC and Zotac Mini were the best for budget gamers. They worked fine for entry-level GPUs like the RX 560 and the GTX 1050 Ti. These days you will only find a handful of single-fan RTX 3050s like the MSI Aero ITX, the PNY XLR8, the Palit StormX, and the Zotac Solo. The 4050 never saw the light of the day to get a proper single-fan treatment.

That said, to date, some companies continue manufacturing blower-edition GPUs. They aren't as readily available, however. You would most likely come across one while shopping for used GPUs. Some resellers flip cards pulled from pre-builts.

System integrators sometimes use blower-edition cards because they take up less space than their open-air counterparts. Given how massive high-end GPUs have gotten, more select pre-built sellers like HP and Lenovo are resorting to single-fan blower-edition cards.

It's perfectly safe to buy such cards. Your GPU would run hotter than the bunch and you wouldn't get any manufacturer warranty, however. If you can make peace with these conditions, getting a blower-edition card can help you save hundreds of dollars.