The Asus Prime GeForce RTX 5070 from the new GeForce generation is aimed at the budget segment. If, like me, you come across a card with a noisy fan bearings, there’s a simple fix—replace it with a quieter one. On the Prime you can even do it without breaking the warranty seal. I swapped the original fans for two 120mm Arctic P12 Slim to see how much the noise has been reduced and what happens to the card’s temperatures and behavior.
I already tried several deshroud variants on the TUF GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. So far, I haven’t found any fans that would clearly perform significantly better than the stock ones. But the Prime RTX 5070 is not as quiet out of the box as the TUF, so swapping the fans should make more sense here.
A couple of days ago, I tested the Arctic P12 Slim PWM PST triple pack on the TUF series GeForce RTX 5070 Ti from Asus.
The Arctic P12 Slim fan series targets the upper mid-range market. While they’re not the cheapest 120 mm fans out there, the extra cost is modest, and they’re significantly more affordable than the Noctua fans we tested previously. Pricing starts at 7 EUR, and the triple pack begins at about 16 EUR.
A big advantage for our setup is that this is the PWM version with PST (PWM Sharing Technology). Instead of ending with just a standard 4-pin connector, this version includes a splitter, allowing you to daisy-chain additional fans. The PWM signal is mirrored from the first fan to the rest, so all fans connected in this chain maintain similar speeds.
The accessories include twelve UNC 6-32 screws, typically used for mounting to radiators, and twelve standard wide self-tapping screws for attaching the fans.
I covered the operating characteristics of the Prime GeForce RTX 5070 in a review a few months ago. On the tested sample, one of the fans was noisier than the others, which made the card more audible than it could have been. It wasn’t completely silent even at minimum RPM. In short, it was an ideal candidate for fitting higher-quality fans.
However, the cooler’s dimensions are not exactly suitable for standard case fan sizes. The card is fairly narrow and 30 cm long—too long for two 120 mm fans, but too short for three. Three 9 cm fans would probably fit best, which I might try later.
The heatsink under the shroud is split into two fin stacks.
This makes it possible to mount two 120 mm fans so that they cover most of the fin area.
I once again modeled a simple frame for the fans, adding side covers. At this stage I was aiming more for a quick functional prototype—something easy to assemble, that would sit properly on the heatsink and serve for measuring temperatures and noise. I didn’t have a 3D scanner handy and didn’t bother with precise measurements, assuming I’d fine-tune things in later iterations. It doesn’t look very aesthetic and the parts don’t fit together perfectly.
The two 120 mm fans are wider than the original trio, so they overhang to the side. I at least used this to extend the side shroud so that hot air would leave the card also from the side, not just through the open vent at the rear. But I haven’t yet measured operating characteristics with the side shroud removed.
On the opposite side, next to the motherboard, the shroud is instead very close to the fins and extends all the way down. I printed it in transparent PETG so you can still partially see underneath.
First, we’ll take a look at how the card performed with the stock fans across the whole RPM range, and then with a pair of Arctic P12 Slim fans.
⠀
