XFX Hard Swap fans - any solid info?

I've got an XFX RX 470 RS Black Edition. Last night I was working on the system it was in and had it sitting on my desk. It's one of these new "hard swap" dealies, where the fan uses contact points on a PCB in the heatsink frame to get power, so they can be easily swapped out.

I poked around with them a bit and It works really well - two clips hold the fan in place, squeeze and lift out. Snap back in. If you can reach the side of the video card while it's installed you could do a fan swap without ever having to take it out of the system. Neat!

I tried finding a page about them / ordering info on XFX' website, but there doesn't seem to be anything up. They mention it on the product pages for a lot of the RX cards, there's event an entry for it on their page under graphics technology:

"but now with XFX's Hard Swap technology, you can upgrade your fan in an instant. We even offer different upgrade option for higher performance or color LED options for customization."

Heck, even the back of the box says you can swap them out and there are different colors, speeds, LED type, all that, and to see the website for more info.

But!

I can't find anything on the XFX site about them, what types they have available or where to buy them. I also haven't seen it addressed in reviews - several mention the fan swap capability but aside from saying it's a new thing they have, there isn't any further info.

Did I miss the product page? Or is it still so fresh that details aren't out yet?

The official announcement is coming soon, i just got some email stating exactly what we're getting. Details should be out in a few weeks

hey, very cool! glad to hear it. thanks for the quick reply.

heres a video of me not getting my fingers cut off playing with them.

What is that old saying about not sticking your fingers where they don't belong???

deruberhanyok Check this out! Maybe contact XFXSupport here about getting some hardware to try out? At least try Twitter.

Very cool! Those look good. I've got a black and orange system that's dying for the LED fans and I'd love to load them up. I'm not on the twitter but I'll send a PM.

They've got info posted here:

XFX Hard Swap Fans

Red, white and blue listed so far.

This is a pretty cool feature, I'm surprised it hasn't gotten much press yet. Maybe once the fans start shipping we'll see something about it?

Well, at least XFX actually have replacement fans. Sapphire on the other hand is complete FAIL with their end-user replaceable fans on the Nitro+ RX470, RX480 cards.. The RX470 I got had a bad fan (one of them is making noises, maybe bad bearings) and they want me to send the whole card in to replace the fan - lol.

QUICK CONNECT
If there's a fan problem, you don't have to return the entire card - SAPPHIRE or our channel partners will send out a replacement fan directly to you! All the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon™ RX 480 and RX 470 fans use our Quick Connect system. That means they're easy to remove, clean and replace, with just one screw holding them securely in place.

Click to expand...

ouch, funks, that sucks. The removal of the fans on the XFX 470 I have is really easy; snap out, snap back in.

I didn't realize Sapphire was trying to do something similar. I guess it would be too much to ask that everyone use the same type of connector though.

deruberhanyok said:

Very cool! Those look good. I've got a black and orange system that's dying for the LED fans and I'd love to load them up. I'm not on the twitter but I'll send a PM.

They've got info posted here:

XFX Hard Swap Fans

Red, white and blue listed so far.

This is a pretty cool feature, I'm surprised it hasn't gotten much press yet. Maybe once the fans start shipping we'll see something about it?

Click to expand...

Yep, we're offering anyone with a 470 or 480 DD a free set to review and enjoy. If you have one, let me know and ill set you up

Pseudo review-not-review, after XFX Support hooked me up with a pair:

Got a pair of the white LED fans in to go into my black and orange box - I figured the red would look off and the blue would make it look like a movie poster.

Popped the side off of my case for easy access to the fans and actually swapped them out while the system was on - idling at the desktop the fans were off, so just squeezed the clips, popped the old ones out and new ones in. Pretty happy with how easy it was - hoping they keep to using these for subsequent product generations, I like the idea of buying LED fans I can keep swapping into new cards rather than having to hunt down a model with the LEDs already in place.

Also, you can mix and match, so I think there's opportunity for some patriotic case mods with a red, white and blue fan when Vega comes along (I'm assuming they will have a Vega card with 3 fans on it).

For the asking price of $20, considering on a new build I'm usually spending an extra $30-40 on quiet case fans already, I think it's a pretty good deal. Bonus potential usefulness through more than one generation of GPU helps.

I'm a fan. (har har).

Are these fans dual ball bearing? Checked all around but theres no product information with regards to the bearing type on any store page, or even the XFX product page.
What about any non-LED variants such as warranty replacements for on-card versions which develop issues? (Assuming that stock ones do not contain LEDs since theres no info about that on product pages either.)

In Australia https://www.pccasegear.com/products/37183/xfx-hard-swap-fan-kit-with-white-led-lighting

Unfortunately thats pretty much the exact same information available from XFX themselves, which is to say not all that much. (They literally just grabbed the manufacturer's marketing info pic and reposted it.):
http://www.xfxforce.com/en-us/products/xfx-hard-swap-fans/xfx-hard-swap-fan-kit-white-ma-ap01-wled
Thanks for trying anyway.

Ratha said:

Are these fans dual ball bearing? Checked all around but theres no product information with regards to the bearing type on any store page, or even the XFX product page.
What about any non-LED variants such as warranty replacements for on-card versions which develop issues? (Assuming that stock ones do not contain LEDs since theres no info about that on product pages either.)

Click to expand...

To me its common sense they will have the non led's for warranty replacements, which makes your first question a moot point....all you have to do is PM the xfx rep if the fans have any issue for 5 years and he sends you new ones! The led fans were more of an afterthought from XFX since, IMO they made the fans easy swap able to cut down on company wide RMA costs. Again if you want absolute for sure answer just Pm the rep lol.