I recently bought a reference RX 480 for my new build and I have been really happy with the card. My only gripe are the thermals (80-85 C ). After looking at a tear-down video of the 480, I was surprised to see the all aluminum heat-sink. No wonder the thermals are sub-par.
With some free time in hand, I figured it would be interesting to see if I can improve things. Also, I am ok with loosing warranty. Not every company can be like evga.
So here are a few ideas. Let me know what you folks think.
- Swap the reference cooler with a arctic gpu cooler. If compatible, this seems like the path of least resistance.
- Change the aluminum heat-sink to a copper one ( Is this even possible? If so the are the results tangible?)
- Use a closed loop cpu cooler and see if it can integrated with the blower design of the GPU.*
I was really inspired looking at some of the videos made by gamersnexus on youtube. He used a cpu cooler, paired with some passive heat-sinks for the memory and vrms.
You can possibly jury rig some CPU heatsink onto the card, also AIO cooling is a possibility.
If you have access to a lot of older cards you can possibly adapt the heatsink from one to work on your card.
One thing you should be really careful about is the die if you're going to poke around in there, treat it like a black piece of glass.
Gamers Nexus did the AIO thing with the 480 a while back. Should watch that video series.
This is kind of expensive when considering the price of the RX 480, however, Gamer Nexus used one of these on a 480
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W04MC6394&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC-_-pla-_-Video+Card+-+Nvidia-_-9SIA2W04MC6394&gclid=CjwKEAjwq8y8BRCstYTm8qeT9mwSJACZGjUkeF32EnosmSxbL9Sx27pLujZt_oktSdauV-E_-erUABoCtFPw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
A cheaper but more ghetto version would be just get a 120mm AIO used on ebay or something for like $40 which would be an effective price and zip tie it on.
I like the term jury ring. Never heard of it before.
Unfortunately, I don't have access to lot of older cards. AIO coolers seems like a good option though. Ebay seems like a good place to start.
Tower coolers can kill cards after a couple years because of all the weight warping it... @feverDream if you go this route make sure it's adequately supported.
I bought a sapphire card.
Damn. I guess I am not the only one with ocd about gpu temperatures :D
This is a little too much for me though.
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When they become available you could pickup one of these and make a cheap loop just for your gpu.
tbh the card is designed to run that hot, I'm not concerned about my 480
just like 290x was meant to be 95C
but I see where you're coming from
Yup. Unfortunately, I don't have an active water loop in the system. I would pick this up in a heartbeat if I had one though.
I used to have the Arctic Accelero Xtreme IV - Arctic's latest version of their highest end GPU air cooler. I liked it a lot, and it has a non-invasive sound, even when at maximum fan speed.
There are two things to keep in mind, though.
1) It doesn't come with any extra hardware for VRM or RAM cooling. The Accelero Xtreme III did, but that also had a different set-up that was harder to install.
2) Make sure that your CPU fan connector is a 4-pin, not a 3-pin connector.
If you're will to throw down the extra ~$70 bucks for much cooler temperatures and a better noise profile, I say go for it. I don't think I would go too overboard with trying to cool the card, though. You'll reach that point of "Why didn't I just spend the money on a better video card?"
EK makes a water block for it, you know.
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What ever happened to those nzxt krackens do they work on current archetecture gpus for a solution?
Not sure. I ordered a artic vga cooler (mono plus) a couple of days ago. Will update once I install it.