Adventures of a Sapphire Nitro+OC RX 480 and an AIO

Palladan · 25 Aug 2016 at 12:41

So, I've had my RX480 for a few weeks now and it's a great little card. All except for the heat which in my case was at around 75C. So, wanting to branch into watercooling my system (was currently only air cooled with 3 140mm fans and a Hyper 212), I reached out to the guys at EKWB to see if they have a block that fits my Nitro+. As you can guess, no. And they weren't looking at doing it.

And then I saw MindBlanks video on cooling his RX480 with the generic GPU AIO. So I thought I'd give it a crack and see how it does. Below is a step by step of how I did it.

For the parts, this cost me around £90, and I've listed below:-

1x 240mm+ Kraken Extreme VGA Cooling Upgrade Bundle - Premium - Black Shroud
1x Watercool passive cooler for VGA RAM 8 Pack
1x Arctic MX-4 Thermal Compound (4g) (Just an extra, as the blocks came pre-applied. Just handy having some around, especially for the GPU)
1x NZXT KRAKEN X61 280mm AIO Water Cooling Unit (this was for my CPU but you'll see me adding it later)

OC sent me everything next day and it was awesome as I ordered so close to the deadline and I looked forward to an evening of tinkering ahead. (For the GPU itself it took about an hour to modify and 20 mins to install and get back up and running)

So first I removed the RX480, front fans and my Hyper 212 from the case.

Then I took my Nitro and flipped it. The 5 outside screws had a small spring on them but came out easy.

Palladan · 25 Aug 2016 at 12:41

Once this was off I removed the LED and fan connectors. My trusty tiny flat screwdriver helped lever these off.

with the shroud off, the heatsink was next - These spring loaded screws really do shoot off.

Now that the heatsink was off I could clean up the card and get ready for mounting the G10. There are some foam posts to support the fan end. The only place I could put these were over the old screw holes.

Then it was time to put the new backplate together and set the waterblock on top.

But... I had forgotten my RAM heatsinks :/ so took it off and set them on. Only 7 will fit due to the size of the waterblock.

Palladan · 25 Aug 2016 at 12:58

Mounted the 2 fans on the Rad, with long screw from my other kit (no long screws in the OC kit, check with Customer support before you order), so that was the G10 and AIO put in place and ready to go back into the case. I encountered a small issue here though. The pipes weren't long enough to reach the front of the case. Not a big deal, but restricted my locations to top only.

Then I mounted my new X61, which was just a normal AIO fitting but all was good.

So it was all done

Looks nice now.

The main aim was to bring the thermals down to a comfortable level for me. These were around 20 degrees off my CPU and 25-30 degrees off the RX480.

Before

After

After changing the fan settings and controls

And my new idle temps.

Next is to see how much I can Overclock the lot.

Any suggestions will be most welcome...

Jony27 · 25 Aug 2016 at 13:15

Nice little tutorial.

I would advise to reapply thermal paste with a lot less though.

Looks like there's too much on the die, which sometimes gives worse temps

Bantu · 25 Aug 2016 at 13:20

very tempted to undertake a similar project.. how are you finding the noise from the krakens vs your previous setup? I would probably restrict the AIO to only the GPU. Very happy with my current CPU cooler.

orbitalwalsh · 25 Aug 2016 at 13:39

did you put any sinks on the VRMs?

did you try to remount the backplate? Guessing you'd have to mount that first then add the backplate and clamp down . Would complete the look of the card

Jony27 · 25 Aug 2016 at 13:41

orbitalwalsh said:
did you put any sinks on the VRMs?

did you try to remount the backplate? Guessing you'd have to mount that first then add the backplate and clamp down . Would complete the look of the card

Not sure there's enough gap/room between the PCB and the Nitro backplate, for the Kraken backplate to sit in between.

varkanoid · 25 Aug 2016 at 13:45

Is it the bottom RAM chip heatsink that wont fit ? With the NZXT bracket its always this one that causes problems. If it is then its a simple fix. What you need to do is remove half the fins from the heatsink from the side that catches the pump bracket and file that side smooth. You will find the heatsink then fits with mm to spare. Thats what I did with my 970/980. Any heatsink is better than none.

Also I would consider cooling the VRM's too with heatsinks. Might be a bit of a job to find ones that fit but the stock fan that comes with the bracket is awful. I replaced it with a better fan from OCUK line up. Consider one with a green LED to match your CPU light.

orbitalwalsh · 25 Aug 2016 at 13:49

Jony27 said:
Not sure there's enough gap/room between the PCB and the Nitro backplate, for the Kraken backplate to sit in between.

should be able to go over the backplate. since the AIO is just screwed down with pressure , just means less thread to screw .

Dave2150 · 25 Aug 2016 at 13:55

Good job, thouh doens't look anywhere near as nice as the Nitro cooler did IMO.

If you total up the AIO and GPU cost, IMO it would have made sense to get a 1070 as you'd have got way more performance and a much cooler running card (150w TDP).

varkanoid · 25 Aug 2016 at 13:58

Dave2150 said:
Good job, thouh doens't look anywhere near as nice as the Nitro cooler did IMO.

If you total up the AIO and GPU cost, IMO it would have made sense to get a 1070 as you'd have got way more performance and a much cooler running card (150w TDP).

Often when you do this type of modification its because a) you want to and b) you can

eg I bought a reference GTX 1080 and fitted a 980ti EVGA Hybrid Cooler to it.

Palladan · 25 Aug 2016 at 14:12

Jony27 said:
Nice little tutorial.

I would advise to reapply thermal paste with a lot less though.

Looks like there's too much on the die, which sometimes gives worse temps

When I took it off after forgetting the heatsinks the paste had only just spilled over the edge of the chip which was similar before I cleaned the old off. Made sure it was conductive before I started.

Palladan · 25 Aug 2016 at 14:15

Bantu said:
very tempted to undertake a similar project.. how are you finding the noise from the krakens vs your previous setup? I would probably restrict the AIO to only the GPU. Very happy with my current CPU cooler.

When I first tested I was on silent mode on CAM so 8-900 rpm on the fans. The lass and I sat down and watched a film without hearing it at all. Would say it's the same for games, performance is noticeably louder, but the fans are hitting 2000+ rpm so it's expected. My headphones cancel out any noise but running in Silent is fine for me.

Palladan · 25 Aug 2016 at 14:18

Dave2150 said:
Good job, thouh doens't look anywhere near as nice as the Nitro cooler did IMO.

If you total up the AIO and GPU cost, IMO it would have made sense to get a 1070 as you'd have got way more performance and a much cooler running card (150w TDP).

That's true. But this was more of a passion project. My build is all AMD with an FX9370, RX480 and I have a freesync monitor. Was very tempted to get a 1070 but opted to keep the Team Red theme, especially as when I first got the RX480 I was thinking Crossfire.

Next year may see a new Mobo/Zen and a Vega card or the second RX480.

Palladan · 25 Aug 2016 at 14:25

orbitalwalsh said:
did you put any sinks on the VRMs?

did you try to remount the backplate? Guessing you'd have to mount that first then add the backplate and clamp down . Would complete the look of the card

The VRM's are slightly ridged so didn't seem necessary.

The G10 mount/backplate has a small foam pad which makes it stand off from the PCB. This would get in the way of the original, plus you'd need some bolts to screw the plate into as the fan chassis held these. I would look at some other heatsink style backplate like the alphacool ones, maybe just at the VRM end. May help some further heat dissipation.

Dave2150 · 25 Aug 2016 at 14:56

Palladan said:
That's true. But this was more of a passion project. My build is all AMD with an FX9370, RX480 and I have a freesync monitor. Was very tempted to get a 1070 but opted to keep the Team Red theme, especially as when I first got the RX480 I was thinking Crossfire.

Next year may see a new Mobo/Zen and a Vega card or the second RX480.

I'm a big AMD fan also, I've owned AMD since the 9800pro many years ago.

That said there comes a point when you can no longer ignore the performance, noise and power efficiency difference between AMD and NVIDIA cards.

NVIDIA make a 1070 performance card (way faster than anything AMD have) with only 150W TDP. AMD can only make a RX480 (970 performance card overall) with the same 150W. Worlds apart.

pastymuncher · 25 Aug 2016 at 15:10

I reckon you are going to need to cool those vrm's somehow. Some of the Enzotech heatsinks should fit. They were cooled by the stock cooler so with it set up as you have it now you may end up with thermal throttling.

Palladan · 25 Aug 2016 at 16:30

pastymuncher said:
I reckon you are going to need to cool those vrm's somehow. Some of the Enzotech heatsinks should fit. They were cooled by the stock cooler so with it set up as you have it now you may end up with thermal throttling.

I haven't experienced any throttling as yet. The fan from the G10 may be enough but I am keeping a very close eye on it.

Omrtpsycho · 16 Nov 2017 at 18:54

Great post mate! Since I am about to do the same to my RX 480 Nitro+, could you please tell me if you can easily remove the Watercool Ram Heatsinks in case of need? (eg. selling the card and reapplying the stock cooler)