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Jankiest RX480 watercooling setup - stay away or have a play?

Dangerous_Dave

Dangerous_Dave

Dangerous_Dave

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21 Sep 2010
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455
I bought an RX480 with 'water cooling' recently and this is what turned up:

http://imgur.com/a/1wnar
http://imgur.com/a/mVruH

This is not the kind of water block I was expecting, but rather looks a lot like a CPU block sort of bodged on there with some slightly wonky screws, and then the original RAM/VRM cooling plate from the reference model sawn off roughly where the PCB ends. My question is this: how likely is this cooling solution to be any use whatsoever? It'll be a short while before I have the other water cooling bits to test it, and I'm wondering if it's worth bothering at all.
 
If it makes good contact with the GPU chip, it will work. Have a play.

This is why you ask for pics though. :D
 
Looks fine to me, you've probably only seen full cover GPU specific blocks before not universal GPU/CPU blocks.

Like any universal block it should perform slightly better than a full cover block, but it will require airflow over the card (not a massive amount, just some).

*EDIT*

For reference the block "appears" to be a chinese design based on the DangerDen MPC blocks which were popular in the Nehalem era, but don't quote me on that I'm just going by memory.
 
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Looks like a universal block, tho I'm guessing it's not compatible with the card. I'd return it unless it was a good deal
 
Thinking about a return TBH - what is holding the block on is those springs sort of half pressing against little arms coming off the block. Doesn't look very secure to me, and of course it's all at a funny angle because it doesn't match up with the holes on the board properly. The fact the seller has dremelled off the last few mm of the PCB as well as the black cooling plate is also a concern. In today's RX480 market it probably was quite a good deal, which is complicating the issue...
 
That block is ancient or at the very least the design is. The design goes back to the early cpu and chipset blocks although I suspect it from one of the chinese cpu block knock off's on ebay that has been butchered to fit (very poorly at that too). The block looks like one of these with the mounting "wings" badly cut off which you can see clearly when you enlarge the bottom picture. It looks like it was badly done with a blunt junior hacksaw. It's clearly not meant for the card, is extremely poorly fitted and then there's the bodge up of the old cooler plate so I would be worried about any damage to the card itself. That would be going back if it was me, but then again I wouldn't have bought it without seeing any pictures.
 
I like it. :p

Water-cooled on the cheap and nasty.

Couple of cable ties on it as well and you are golden :p
 
Dangerous_Dave said:
I bought an RX480 with 'water cooling' recently and this is what turned up:

http://imgur.com/a/1wnar
http://imgur.com/a/mVruH

This is not the kind of water block I was expecting, but rather looks a lot like a CPU block sort of bodged on there with some slightly wonky screws, and then the original RAM/VRM cooling plate from the reference model sawn off roughly where the PCB ends. My question is this: how likely is this cooling solution to be any use whatsoever? It'll be a short while before I have the other water cooling bits to test it, and I'm wondering if it's worth bothering at all.
Click to expand...

Return it and demand refund. Is a botched job done by a miner. :(
 
Cheers for the comments. I've put in a return request.

It's interesting that you can botch a form of water cooling onto some cards for £7. Has me sort of wondering how effective it would have been. Looking at the reference card design, it seems to me there was really no need to hacksaw the end off the cooler:

http://imgur.com/a/Yik22

Surely the seller could have just removed the aluminium fin block and left everything else in place, which would also have provided some cooling from the impeller fan for the cooling plate.
 
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