So iv been seeing my R9 290 drop into throttle hell over the last few weeks, doom dropped to a stutter (20fps) for 10 seconds at a time, throttled in the steam VR test to drop to 5.7 / 5.8. And worse of all to counter this until now I was pushing the fan passed 60% target speed and putting up with the jet engine noise of the 290's stock cooler.
So after seeing that the RX 480 would not give me anything extra at 1440p (I would maybe take a performance hit in some areas) I decided to strip the card down and check the cooler for dust build up and replace the thermal paste.
As I went through the process i found a few things that other sites miss / gloss over so thought id share my process, so here we go.
For starters here is the card in its normal case
1) Remove all 3 screws along the edge of the plastic cover, this will free the cover and allow it to slide off (i found that lifting it from the fan end first was the best way of this)
Now you can see any dust build up in the fan or within the fins above the copper cool plate / vapour chamber
2) Flip the card over and remove all 12 securing screws for the cooler and the 4 spring loaded screws around the GPU core (loosening these 4 best done slowly in a rotation 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4 ect).
3) Remove the 2 retaining screws on the IO panel
4) Slowly twist the cooler until it separates from the card
As you can see there is WAY too much thermal compound on the GPU itself
5) clean up the fan and cooling fins if needed
6) Using isopropyl alcohol / heatsink cleaner clean up the GPU die and cooler contact, I also used a toothpick to carefully clean up the mass of old compound around the GPU die
7) re apply the new thermal compound to the GPU die (I used MX-4)
8) I also put a small amount of the thermal compound on the VRM pads on the cooler, as these seemed quite brittle and where falling apart.
9) Now follow instructions 4 - 1 in reverse to put the card back together
After this I reverted my fan target to stock (47% i think) and ran the steam VR test, the GPU still gets up to the max temperature and throttles. But a LOT less often, my steam VR score on stock settings was 6.3 after the above process in comparison to 5.7 before
So after seeing that the RX 480 would not give me anything extra at 1440p (I would maybe take a performance hit in some areas) I decided to strip the card down and check the cooler for dust build up and replace the thermal paste.
As I went through the process i found a few things that other sites miss / gloss over so thought id share my process, so here we go.
For starters here is the card in its normal case
1) Remove all 3 screws along the edge of the plastic cover, this will free the cover and allow it to slide off (i found that lifting it from the fan end first was the best way of this)
Now you can see any dust build up in the fan or within the fins above the copper cool plate / vapour chamber
2) Flip the card over and remove all 12 securing screws for the cooler and the 4 spring loaded screws around the GPU core (loosening these 4 best done slowly in a rotation 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4 ect).
3) Remove the 2 retaining screws on the IO panel
4) Slowly twist the cooler until it separates from the card
As you can see there is WAY too much thermal compound on the GPU itself
5) clean up the fan and cooling fins if needed
6) Using isopropyl alcohol / heatsink cleaner clean up the GPU die and cooler contact, I also used a toothpick to carefully clean up the mass of old compound around the GPU die
7) re apply the new thermal compound to the GPU die (I used MX-4)
8) I also put a small amount of the thermal compound on the VRM pads on the cooler, as these seemed quite brittle and where falling apart.
9) Now follow instructions 4 - 1 in reverse to put the card back together
After this I reverted my fan target to stock (47% i think) and ran the steam VR test, the GPU still gets up to the max temperature and throttles. But a LOT less often, my steam VR score on stock settings was 6.3 after the above process in comparison to 5.7 before
