Anyone got experience with the EKWB 3080 FE waterblock?

Spiritwolf · 9 Feb 2021 at 17:46

Hi Guys

Some of you may be aware memory over heating issue on 3090s and 3080s due to memory placement at the back of the PCB. These are usually cooled by the backplate, which is not sufficient when graphics card is stressed during benchmarks such as Furmark or Cuda work(The memory easily reach up to 110C) with the back plate feeling very hot to the touch, with the card suffering a noticeable drop in performance through thermal throttling.

I have noticed the only cooler that mentions backplate contact is the EKWB FE waterblock, where they mention there is a direct contact point between back and front of the plates to pass some of the active cooling to back plate. HWInfo is the only monitoring software I know that shows memory temperature.

Does anyone have any experience of this? I am seriously considering EKWB 3090 water blocks right now due to the mention of this.

Spiritwolf · 9 Feb 2021 at 19:44

Thanks I will definitely look at heat killer, from what I can see for the full FE block the missing triangle on PCB is used as a direct contact point and a pretty big one at that.
I can see potential of adding thermal paste or pads to improve the heat transfer.

Spiritwolf · 10 Feb 2021 at 19:46

The FE version is not out yet, as far as I can see all the other blocks are front and back separated.

Spiritwolf · 14 Feb 2021 at 19:31

Radox-0 said:
One of EK's recent videos, around 5 min mark they talk about the 3090FE block

Nice thanks that explains a lot, so it should be better but maybe not by much, I am wondering if they will include thermal pads for the contact point

Spiritwolf · 14 Feb 2021 at 22:29

TT158 said:
I got the Corsair XG7 for 3090 FE and it's going great. I think it the memory junction temperature was 68 max in a stress test before I put the mp5works bpc on and it's 62 or something. Either way, absolutely fine, and can probably be lowered more with high quality thermal pads, which I will try when I move my parts to a new case in a few weeks.

The Corsair block is around 150 quid, available locally or from Corsair.

Thanks that's very good to know, I would definitely get it following your recommendation, however it seems to be sold out everywhere, with the closest due mid April.

I've got 2 more questions though since you have gone through the process.

1. Are there any warranty void stickers or screws? Forfeiting 3 years warranty on a 1.4K card feels a bit risky.

2. Are there any backplate contact with front plate with Corsair XG7? Or is the back plate cooling purely through the PCB? Given it is a straight plate the heat dissipation should be quite limited.

Spiritwolf · 15 Feb 2021 at 09:05

TT158 said:
1. There were no warranty void stickers. I didn't notice anything odd on any screws, but can't say for sure.

This discussion is US / Canada centric, so not sure how it applies here, but there do seem to be some NVidia reps saying that you can add a block.

https://amp.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/ipnyvt/according_to_nvidia_customer_care_putting_a/

2. No real contact between front and back plates other than screws, but it seems to work pretty well regardless. Someone else on this forum tested the Aquacomputer with active backplate vs his EK and found the Aquacomputer much worse on memory temps, which was surprising and disappointing. The Corsair one seems to perform similarly to the EK one.

Hope that helps!

Thanks! it helps a lot.

At this point I will probably wait either for the Corsair to come to stock, or wait for EK to release their block.

In US/Cananda warranty void stickers has been legally ruled as un-enforceable by the high court, while in the EU/UK it has not been done so, which is always strange since I thought EU generally has better consumer protection. You could probably try take them to court if they refuse to repair based on warranty sticker and probably win, however who is really going to bother hiring lawyers etc for that.