Advice on AOI cooler on GPU

[MegaPinches]

Hi,

Been palying tomb raider and its the first game thats really hammered my msi 390 and got the fan going at 100% which is no suprise ludicriously loud. Up untill now its not been so bad playing games like ori but TR pumps it up to 87-93C so ive decided to get a G10 plus h55.

Why are thier hardly any gpu brackets available for AOI, you would have thought they would be popular since air cooling gpu sucks so much for noise but anyway....

G10 and H55 it is for cost, im decided on that.

Couple questions, is the fan speed on the h55 rad controlled by the gpu? does it ramp up accordingly or is it just in the mobo and at a fixed speed, I assume the h55 pump pin just goes into the mobo right or gpu?

I currently have a h40 on my CPU and the corsair 120mm fans are rubbish, very loud to me so ive stuck a resistor on it and its very quiet and still works just as well. Is this gonna be suffiecient with a 390, having on fan with a resistor. Im not hugely concerned about it being super low temps, as long as its within tolerance and isnt loud, thats what I want it for, so happy with a 120mm rad plus Im not forking out more money, already spunked loads on the 390 in the first place.

Also I'm assuming the msi 390 will work with a G10 right? its not on the list but that compatability list os pre 390 days. Anyone have this setup?

Cheers

 

[Marine-RX179]

A 390 with a custom cooler should not hit that level of temp...what model 390 do you have? Also how is the airflow of your case and what case are you using?

 

[tommybhoy]

On the presumption it's the Kraken:

AIO fan/s are powered by either the MB or a fan bay controller, you can perhaps use MB and check if your MB has different fan speed settings.

The cooler pins are all the same so I imagine it will fit, but perhaps not with the back plate in place, you might have to remove it.

Leave the MSI vram/vrm in place if you can, otherwise you need to cool the vrm with heatsinks.

Also, MSI have warranty void stickers that although MSI state you can remove them in the western market, you might have a job explaining that to wherever you bought it from if anything goes wrong.

A 390 with a custom cooler should not hit that level of temp...what model 390 do you have? Also how is the airflow of your case and what case are you using?

Marine, it's MSI, they just love to put the biggest blob of paste ever on their gpu's.

 

[shankly1985]

Using the HG10 on my msi 290 with H70 or 75 can't remember now.
Works really well temps now stay low 60s can get even lower if I didn't have front of case blocking air flow.

The fans on the corsair cooler are plugged into motherboard pin and controlled by bios or motherboard software like on my Asus I have fan expert 2

The only issue with the HG10 is you need to have a stock reference board design and also stock blower fan. Last I heard they was going to start shipping the hg10 with blower fan make sure first.
The blower fan does plug into the GPU and is only used for cooling the vrms

 

[MegaPinches]

I have a fractal R4, with 2 140mm fans at front and I run them at 12v when playing games via the switch, air flow is good, the card was a good 8C cooler than the corsair 200r i had it in before I changed to this, so case isn't issue, maybe reapply paste would get me down a little. When i first got it, i was playing GTA5 and temps were max of 82c and fan speed would be like 67%ish if i remember correctly??? but lately on new TR is much higher but I gather others are experiencing this when I asked on the ROTTR thread.

Not sure what control over fans I will have on my mobo as software is very limited, its just about the worse z77 board you can get GA-Z77-DS3H, I have my cpu AOI fans just running at a fixed rate with resistor and its fine, temp and noise wise.

"Leave the MSI vram/vrm in place if you can, otherwise you need to cool the vrm with heatsinks" whats this about? is there a seperate peice once i take this apart I can leave on as well as still having the g10 on, I thought the msi cooler would be all one peice? explain further?, the little fan on the g10 not gonna be good enough?, im not overclocking the ram, this is purely to get noise down.

Ive never had a decent gpu AMD cooler Ive been satisfied with, I had a 290 and I sold it the same day i bought it was so loud, only ones ive heard being nice and quiet is a 980 reference

 

[tommybhoy]

Leave the cooling plate as it is in pic 1 if you can(I think you'll be able to), pic 2 it's obviously been removed, it isn't just cooling vram, it's cooling the memory controller vrms too.

I've noticed the power vrms are left bare(yellow box) on this card but MSI must have decided the fans must be strong enough to cool it-which it might not be, and that could be why your temps are so high in the first place as very hot vrms can cause the core to heat up even more.

Easy way to find out now is to run a game with a program called GPUz and check the temps of the vrms(you can select max temp readout on each sensor setting to show you max temp it reached)-they should be round about 70-80c range under normal circumstances and not be much higher than the core, if they are considerably higher, then that could be the heat problem the card is getting.

If you can't make out what I boxed off, you can view full size pics here:

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_390X_Gaming/4.html

Imo, the (yellow box)vrms need small heatsinks if your going to use the Kraken as the fan isn't going to blow enough cool air on them to keep them cool enough and could destroy your card over time(could be sooner rather than later).

GPUz:

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

You'll notice in the second pic the vrm temp isn't there, in the sensor reading window you'll need to scroll down to see the vrm sensor reading.

 

[shankly1985]

The Msi cooler has VRM sticky pads that are not shown in that screenshot.. For the HG10 you need to remove all the bracket from the gpu.
The HG10 has all the sticky pads fitted and ready to go so long has the gpu is reference design.

 

[AiiR]

Had that card last week but swapped it for another GTX970 due to the high temps and noise. During Metro Last Light it would start to throttle to stay at 94c. If you're fairly competent at taking stuff apart you can give replacing the thermal paste a go, that made mine a good 5/10c cooler on most games.

 

[tommybhoy]

The Msi cooler has VRM sticky pads that are not shown in that screenshot..

The cooler come into contact with the vrms then Shanks?

 

[shankly1985]

The cooler come into contact with the vrms then Shanks?

On the corsair hg10 it does mate. The kraken g10 is horrible I don't recommend that at all lol

 

[Orch]

Following with interest. My MSI 390x sits at 82° whilst gaming most of the time, but on occassions it as gone up to 87-88° which worries me.

EKWB are bringing out a waterblock later this month I think

 

[MegaPinches]

Leave the cooling plate as it is in pic 1 if you can(I think you'll be able to), pic 2 it's obviously been removed, it isn't just cooling vram, it's cooling the memory controller vrms too.

Hi, Thanks for guide, thinking now maybe its not worth the effort, its not that im not competant enough to do it but seems like a lot of faffing now and extra cash and concern sorting vram out, im adding this up I may just wait for next gen and get something high end with a stock AIO like the fury x has.

I will try reapplying thermal paste, see if it helps but im not the only one compaling about high temps on ROTTR, could it be as you suggest the vram getting hot causing hotter core, could this be due to TR using tonnes of vram more than other games causing it to heat up more, or does it not really work that way.

When i first got the 390 i was impressed with noise when it ran around 80c but not at 100% its obviosuly ludicrious, the current 900 nvidea are much quieter even with reference cooler

Its odd that there are so few solutions for using AOI on graphics cards and yet so many for cpu when the benefit to water cool gpu is so much higher than cpu, noise wise.

 

[tommybhoy]

The kraken g10 is horrible I don't recommend that at all lol

Don't know about anyone else's capacity to fit them correctly mate but my two g10's in crossfire done the job admirably, could even bench up to 1260 in crossfire, that ain't easy unless going proper water.

 

[shankly1985]

Don't know about anyone else's capacity to fit them correctly mate but my two g10's in crossfire done the job admirably, could even bench up to 1260 in crossfire, that ain't easy unless going proper water.

I had a hard time fitting VRM cooling fins that I had to buy separate.

 

[tommybhoy]

Iv'e got bags and bags of heatsinks that'd fit, should've asked.

 

[shankly1985]

Iv'e got bags and bags of heatsinks that'd fit, should've asked.

Thanks I know where to go next time

 

[tommybhoy]

I will try reapplying thermal paste, see if it helps but im not the only one compaling about high temps on ROTTR, could it be as you suggest the vram getting hot causing hotter core, could this be due to TR using tonnes of vram more than other games causing it to heat up more, or does it not really work that way.

Not talking about vram heat, that's not what's causing the problem, talking about vrms(yellow box) which is the cards power delivery, when they heat up and they can't dissipate the heat, it causes the core temps to rocket.

Problem with ROTTR is, it's a very, very demanding title, it's using every bit of the card it can where as nearly every other title doesn't, if you run it with lesser settings(tess,AA,blur) I'll hazard a guess the temps will normalise.

But since youv'e changed your mind, ghetto mod some fans to blow air directly onto or away from it, it won't be pretty but it works.

When i first got the 390 i was impressed with noise when it ran around 80c but not at 100% its obviosuly ludicrious, the current 900 nvidea are much quieter even with reference cooler.

The non Titan reference Nvidia cooler is utter garbage imo, it isn't the Titan cooler, it's a cheapo job that grinds at idle and goes from bad to worse when it spins up like any other fan.

 

[tommybhoy]

Thanks I know where to go next time

 

[D1craig]

yea i dont like the look of the kraken either, it just looks like a rushed mess, where as the corsair one looks very smart and tidy. they have been coming up with a blower fan for them for over 4 months now, can it really be that hard for them?

 

[wunkley]

yea i dont like the look of the kraken either, it just looks like a rushed mess, where as the corsair one looks very smart and tidy. they have been coming up with a blower fan for them for over 4 months now, can it really be that hard for them?

I've got/ used both - had a corsair hg10 n780 on my 780Ti and currently have a kraken g10 on my 980Ti in my new gaming rig. Both times with a corsair h55 unit. Honest summary from experience....

The corsair hg10

Fitting

theoretically easier to fit and set up as it has everything you need in the box. However, I actually found it very confusing and difficult to setup, the instructions were terrible and I ended up winging it and not using the bracket it was telling me to use etc etc. The 980 version has also been recalled recently due to mounting issues and the fact it can bend cards too much.

Performance

Very good. Dramatically lowered temps on my 780ti. The whole unit also acts a heat sink and cools all the ram and vrm chips

Looks

Personally, I think it just looks clunky and a bit fuddy duddy. Not a fan to be honest.



Kraken g10

Fitting

Depends on your cards makeup, whether you have a backplate, mid plate or whatever but in a way I actually found it easier to fit the kraken. This may have been because it wasn't my first go at this type of thing, like it was with the corsair one. It's just a lot more straightforward in many ways.

The thing with the kraken is, for me at least I was going with a whole more 'modding' mindset before I started so I was prepared for hassle and to put some research and work in. I'd read the criticisms about it not cooling the vrm chips enough, so I did some full research and bought lots of bits including small heat sinks, Akasa thermal tape for the heat sinks, a noctua 92mm fan and a geilid adapter to attach the fan so I can control it via GPU temp via afterburner.
As such it was a bit of a project and took me a fair few hours to prepare and do. It even involved me having to hacksaw some of the heat sinks, and I had to clean all the glue off with solution before applying the new thermal tape etc etc.

A lot of hassle many may think, but You know what though, I enjoyed it, and I'm very pleased with how it went and the results!

Performance

Very good. dramatically lowered the temps of my 980Ti. I've got a vardar fan on my radiator heat sink now and have spent ages finding a balance between rpm speed, quietness and performance.
The 92mm noctua fan is fantastic, so quiet, but I never run it past about 75% speed. The heat sinks feel rock solid and hopefully are doing the job

Unfortunately I have no way of monitoring the vrm temps on the 980ti, or the 780ti so I have no stats. There is no software that reads it, and from the scant info out there I don't either card has vrm temp sensors built in.

Looks

I actually prefer the look of the kraken to the corsair hg10 by a long way. My card has a backplate, and the black kraken bracket compliments it very well. It looks **** hot in my new case and system, a lian li pc08 case which is all smoked tempered glass and controllable led lit.

I'd say that looks pretty good


Summary

I'll be honest, if the corsair n980 bracket hadn't been recalled, I would have got that for my 980ti, just because it would have been a bit easier all round for the reasons above.
But, having said that, with the results I've got with the kraken, how it looks in my case, and the fact that I actually enjoyed doing it all, I'm tipping it to the kraken g10.

Also, whoever you go for, in summary I think AIO coolers for GPUs are the way forward. Never going back to air coolers now.