He posted some data in the main thread but no idea where it is now , hopefully he can add his results here but i remember him being surprised at the difference . As long as its not to difficult for you to get the card out and repasted then try both would be the best option , with mine being hardpipe taking the gpu in and out is not a simple task so just went straight to LM as i knew it worked so well and wont have to take it out again
TBH your delta is about right for paste , for reference i just run a PR bench and am getting 25deg water 43avg temp so 18deg delta using LM .
Unfortunately it didn't go to well at all as due to the water getting down to 3 deg which the core loved and would happily boost higher the memory hated it and was causing me no end of grief trying to get it stable as this resulted in the memory being just 16 deg under load and could only get it stable at +1200 which is down from my normal +1450 when indoors 
As a result i couldn't even match my best score when indoors which is currently 28300 on this card bust was 28200 yesterday when outside. Only tried on Port Royal and as i was getting nowhere on that gave up brought in the PC and jumped on MW2 instead
Yeah i see a guy on Overclockers.net saying he has left the plastic backing on and now its like 55 degs and very stable .... i don't want to pull this apart again but will have to get on it over the Christmas break and see if i can get it stable again at high memory oc
Sounds like a plan
At this point i am thinking use no thermal pads at all in that case even with the crap EK pads which are 3w/mk it still doesn't get hot enough .... what a crazy situation this is , last gen we would have been praying for temps this low now we want them sky high again
Core looks spot on as does hot spot but yeah memory still on the low side ... honestly think no thermal pads may be what is needed even though it sounds wrong. Alternatively leave it as is as its only in extreme benchmarks it seems to have an effect. I can daily this at +1200 memory no matter the temp of the memory which is still a nice oc over stock .. it will do +1450 depending on water temp but won't do +1550 it did on air
My advice from what i know now is to just stick with the stock EK block , the ABP is a stunning looking bit of kit and can understand if you want to do it on looks alone but from a performance point of view is probably doing more harm than good as very likely not helping with the memory temp issue as the back of the pcb is watercooled as well as the front so hardly has any chance to build up heat and remain stable for the memory. I do plan strip this down eventually and get the pads changed to either EK pads at 3w/mk or find something with an even lower rating to try and keep some sort of heat in the memory chips , alternatively im still keen to see what they do with no thermal pads as there is so much headroom available with them technically being able to rech 110deg safely
The standard block is more than enough on these 4090 , i was initially in 2 minds if to go fr the ABP or not knowing full well it had no ram chips on the back to cool but will openly admit the main factor was looks for me as i previously had a 3090 Strix with ABP and loved the look and design and wanted to replicate that again so went with the ABP for looks alone with the hope it may offer better cooling , well we now know it looks stunning but is a pita for overcooling the card somewhat , what a bizarre generation this isThanks for the reply Jay, I`ll stick with the standard block, saves a few quid too
It must be something to do with the new 2GB modules they are now using on the 40 series compared to the 30 series using 1GB versions as they never suffered from this issue at all , in fact was the total opposite and got to damn hot as stock
It would be interesting to know if the 3090Ti had the same issue as that is when they started using these new 2GB ram modules but i suppose the card wasn't that popular and even less people watercooled them as i don't think i have seen one till this day... 40 series obviously a lot more popular so the problem was found very early on.Did you place Thermal pads on the rear of the pcb behind where the memory goes ?
I wont be bothering with expensive gelid pads this time and will just use the EK supplied pads that i never originally used ... do you have any pics with the small 3x3mm cuts you done for yours ?Perfect will apply full pads to the back as well thenUnfortunately no pics and havent taken it apart since. Full pads on back except I didn't put any on VRMS as it amplified Coil whine too much.How many 4090s have you had now
was getting some black screen issues with my previous one even when run at stock so think the card was faulty but Nvidia sorted me a new one ( 10 day turn around from UK to HK then back to UK ) Jensen knew i liked to oc the card and sent me back one of his golden samples 
just do what i have done above adding tiny thermal pads and you wont lose anything on the memory oc but for what its worth my 1st setup using the expensive gelid pads i only actually lost 50mhz total on my top end ability .... on air would do 1500 on memory but 1450 once watercooled with expensive pads ( waste of money ! ) , the card was set to +1200 on memory for daily use and was perfect
nothing wrong with the standard block mate , if anything it is the safer and better option in that it will fit pretty much all motherboards as standard where as this ABP version is a pita as it requires 15mm clearance so will not fit all MB.... i ordered my new MB not even knowing if it would fit but luckily looks like it will be ok just aboutloving the setup bud , i bottled and went with standard block as out of stock and used what would have been refunded to snag quanum velocity 2 cpu block to go nicely with distro plate , wish i never now thou looks nice
Unfortunately not or at least not one i have found , i resorted to looking at all MB and zooming into the pci-e slot area to see how much room it has above ... problem is any mb that cost a bit will normally now have a stupidly big heatsink above the pci-e slot making it nearly impossible to judge
I was looking at AMD / X670 boards as well and had my eye on the Asus Crosshair Hero ( https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus...ocket-am5-ddr5-atx-motherboard-mb-6j4-as.html ) but again hard to judge on pics until i saw Jay2cent video on his new build using the AMD hero board and he had the same dilemma thinking it wouldn't fit so went with the stock waterblock ... upon assembly it looks like the ABP would have fitted as there is a visible gap when using his standard waterblock and he mentions this as well ... Apart from that the card has been absolutely spot on and the tiny thermal pads on the memory have worked perfectly at keeping the memory up to temp and loosing none of its oc ability. I also installed the Cablemod angled adapter which again fits block perfect although will be tight getting it off again but no different from an air-cooled gpu , the adapter is a worthwhile purchase ! 
No its absolutely fine , the bracket on the left secures it in place and isn't going anywhere ... weight wise its no heavier than some of the 3090 let alone some of the air cooled 4090's we have now
From memory the block was around 2kg when assembled which is what an aircooled 3090 strix weighed , no issues with bending 
