GPU EK Waterblock Vinyl

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Morning All,

Picked up my 6900XT XFX WB Tuesday, this comes pre-installed with a EK water block which is great, however not so great is the back plate is black..... :mad:

My new build is all colour co-ordinated around white and blue with only a small amount of black on the motherboard and case to be as a backing to highlight the white.

Can I apply Vinyl to the backplate? would this cause issues? obviously I know it provides a small amount of passive cooling, but I wouldn't think 0.5mm of Vinyl would effect this greatly?

Before someone says it as well, Yes i know I am sad for caring about it, but this is a project so want to try and get as much as I want how I want :rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
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Morning All,

Picked up my 6900XT XFX WB Tuesday, this comes pre-installed with a EK water block which is great, however not so great is the back plate is black..... :mad:

My new build is all colour co-ordinated around white and blue with only a small amount of black on the motherboard and case to be as a backing to highlight the white.

Can I apply Vinyl to the backplate? would this cause issues? obviously I know it provides a small amount of passive cooling, but I wouldn't think 0.5mm of Vinyl would effect this greatly?

Before someone says it as well, Yes i know I am sad for caring about it, but this is a project so want to try and get as much as I want how I want :rolleyes::rolleyes:
Nothing wrong with applying abit of colour to the backplate to colour code, i've done this in the past with very little impact to its performance though... backplates back then were more of a aesthetic upgrade rather than an actual performance heat transfer component.
 
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You can make an acrylic backplate, good tutorials on YT.

Other option is too remove backplate and spray it the required colour.

EK do Nickel backplates, I know it is not white but may be better than black. You would have to check if the do the backplate for the XFX version. I would guess it is the reference PCB and not the same as the Asus or Gigabyte PCB.
 
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Before I put my 6800 in its water block I tested the card in an old system. Whilst i was gaming I touched the backplate and it was uncomfortably warm and would not have wanted to keep my fingers there. The backplate is an integral part of the heat dissapation for the rear mounted memory modules on the 6800 and 6900 cards, they have heat transfer pads making contact to the backplate. I do not see the vinyl trapping all the heat but I think it would discolour or bubble within a short period of time.
The front of the card will have the gpu water block absorbing the heat from the memory modules and it will then be transferred away by the water and will not get as hot imo so I cannot see a problem with vinyl wrapping the front portions.

I suggest you loop the Heaven benchmark for an hour and then touch the backplate to see how hot it is and then consider your options.
 
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With the correct vinyl it may not be an issue but it is just plastic of one type or another. My take on this is that there is most likely a very good reason backplates are painted and not vinyl wrapped and if it was easy why have we never seen show builds with custom graphics applied via vinyl. I am dubious because I have never seen it used for this purpose and there are some very smart creative people out there doing show builds.

https://www.teamacme.com/vehicle-wraps-7/can-extreme-heat-damage-the-vinyl-wrap-on-a-car/

This article says "Avoid storing vinyl-wrapped vehicles in temperatures exceeding 86-degrees Fahrenheit". That is only 30 Celcius and the interior of a PC is almost always hotter than that when in use.
 
Soldato
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With the correct vinyl it may not be an issue but it is just plastic of one type or another. My take on this is that there is most likely a very good reason backplates are painted and not vinyl wrapped and if it was easy why have we never seen show builds with custom graphics applied via vinyl. I am dubious because I have never seen it used for this purpose and there are some very smart creative people out there doing show builds.

https://www.teamacme.com/vehicle-wraps-7/can-extreme-heat-damage-the-vinyl-wrap-on-a-car/

This article says "Avoid storing vinyl-wrapped vehicles in temperatures exceeding 86-degrees Fahrenheit". That is only 30 Celcius and the interior of a PC is almost always hotter than that when in use.
Apparently you can get vinyl wrap with higher heat resistance
Makes Sense since 30c is less than it might get to
On a really hot UK day
Stuff for kitchen worktops says 80c though not
Prolonged at that temperature
But it looks like there's vinyl for brake calipers with extreme heat resistance
 
Soldato
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I put plain old white glossy vinyl on my 1080 backplates, it was alright but cause the backplate wasn't a solid flat piece but had holes, it bubbled in those holes.

The xfx 6900 doesn't have those holes so it should be fine.
 
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If the backplate gets hot under load, I would advise against it.
Painting may cause some minor loss of thermal conductivity, unless for some reason the paint manages to trap all the heat in, but there's a big chance it won't cause issues.
But vinyl, only if the backplate stays cool under load.
You can always try to monitor the before and after using HWinfo.
 
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Regards to the backplate. If I was to remove do I then also need to replace the thermal pads? Or as they good to just go straight back on?

Cheers
 
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If they don't get damaged and are the soft spongy kind which bounces back into shape, no. But if they're the harder kind and you can see indentation, I would suggest changing it. But doesn't have to be very expensive ones. Gelid aren't cheap, but they're fantastic and cheaper than the thermalright ones.
 
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It's certainly likely to get very hot between the backplate and the card at the absolute least. That alone will drastically shorten the life of the LEDs.

Taking into consideration the components and how delicate they are, I wouldn't want to risk squashing something that doesn't neccesarily fit into that small of a gap.
 
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