Skip to main content

This fascinating new GPU completely ditches fans

ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XTX Passive 24GB graphics card.
ASRock

We may still be in limbo when it comes to next-gen graphics cards, but ASRock just launched a couple of interesting AMD GPUs. The ASRock RX 7900 XTX Passive and the RX 7900 XT Passive are two of AMD’s most powerful consumer graphics cards, but this time around, they’re completely fanless. That’s right — without an active cooling solution, these cards rely entirely on passive cooling.

At a glance, no one would’ve said that the cards in question are part of AMD’s RX 7000 series. After all, the RX 7900 XTX normally features three fans, but this one comes with zero, and it’s also significantly thinner than ASRock’s other versions of the RX 7900 XTX. Both cards are now just dual-slot, and they’re both shorter and thinner than their air-cooled counterparts.

Recommended Videos

The GPUs come with a grooved vapor chamber heatsink, made to move heat from the card to the aluminum cooling fins. The heatsink stretches across the GPU die, the memory, and the voltage regulator module (VRM), which should translate to a solid cooling solution even despite the lack of fans. The 12V-2×6 power connector has been placed right at the edge of the printed circuit board (PCB), making cable management simpler.

ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XT Passive 20GB graphics card.
ASRock

ASRock describes the GPUs as “multi-cards for accelerate computing,” but they do have slightly lower specs than their overclocked versions; no surprise, given the passive cooling. The RX 7900 XTX Passive has a boost clock of 2.5GHz, which is the same as the ASRock RX 7900 XTX 24GB, but a mere 80MHz less than the Taichi OC version of the card. It’s not a big trade-off, and the VRAM and the bus width stayed the same in both GPUs.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!

It’s unclear when ASRock’s Passive GPUs will hit the shelves, and we’re not sure how much they’re going to cost. Regardless, they’re unlikely to be of interest to most people. A quiet GPU sure is nice to have, but the cooling could prove tricky outside of some very specific settings.

Fanless cards are rare for gamers, but they’re not unusual in settings that need higher performance, such as AI workloads. These cards are likely to end up in multi-GPU solutions, such as inside a server chassis. That way, they’ll still receive plenty of cooling and remain stable. In a gaming chassis, a card with a 355-watt TDP (which is what the 7900 XTX sports) would most likely struggle to keep cool.

Monica J. White
Monica is a computing writer at Digital Trends, focusing on PC hardware. Since joining the team in 2021, Monica has written…
AMD says that FSR 4 might not be an RDNA 4 exclusive after all
AMD announcing FSR 4 during CES 2025.

AMD will soon launch new graphics cards, although they were pretty much absent from its CES 2025 keynote. Fortunately, a new interview with Frank Azor, AMD's chief architect of gaming solutions and gaming marketing, gives us a little bit more information. One interesting tidbit from the interview is that FSR 4, currently an RDNA 4 exclusive, might still one day make it to older AMD GPUs.

Azor spoke to Michael Quesada in an interview that was later shared by El Chapuzas Informatico and VideoCardz. They spoke about FSR 4, but also the general price point and the predicted performance of the RX 9070 XT. Throughout the interview, it's made clear that AMD is angling for a value-oriented product this time around.

Read more
AMD’s RX 9070 XT might beat Nvidia’s $1,000 GPU
Gigabyte's RX 9070 XT GPU.

AMD unveiled its RDNA 4 architecture at CES 2025, but the announcement failed to generate much hype, as many questions were left unanswered. However, thanks to leaked benchmarks, we now have unofficial data that shows the card beating Nvidia's $1,000 RTX 4080 Super, which helps us figure out where it'll rank among some of the best graphics cards.

The benchmarks originated from the Chiphell forum, where admin user nApoleon shared 3DMark scores and GPU-Z details. The post also urged users to delay buying Nvidia's RTX 50-series, claiming the GPU market has "completely changed" based on the results.

Read more
New pricing leak shows AMD may have been right to wait for Nvidia
An Asus RX 9070 XT TUF GPU.

AMD's upcoming RX 9070 XT is still largely a mystery, but it won't be long before it's out there, competing against some of the best graphics cards. Many are wondering about how much it'll cost, and a reliable leaker just shared the rumored pricing of the RX 9070 XT. Reportedly, it's going to be cheaper than Nvidia's RTX 5070.

The information comes from zhangzhonghao on the Chiphell forums. This leaker has previously shared claims that turned out to be true, but still, it's important to take this with a healthy dose of skepticism, as it's not being presented as a fact -- and even if it was, it's never certain until AMD itself speaks up.

Read more