EK Active Backplate Waterblock install for 4090 FE

[OC2000]

My Strix squealed like a pig in its EK water block so I certainly know what you mean there interesting that removing the thermal pads shuts it up, never knew that! My FE is silent so will leave the pads on but good to know for future reference

As for a cold day I'm not sure where you are but here in London it's absolutely freezing at the minute.. like 3 deg outside . Perfect for some pc / rad outside benchmarks if mine didn't weigh 60kg I'd have it out in the garden getting chilled

A day where there's no possibility of rain it is definitely a good time of year to overclock and bench.

 

[OC2000]

Yeah the ram is strange on these , have seen people even report that on air it will black screen if they run it cold at max oc and have to reduce it to get it stable. Mine dropped just 50mhz on the memory to get stable although as I mentioned earlier in games I have it set to +1200 and is rock solid stable no matter what temp . Not ideal for extreme benchmarks but perfectly fine with a good stable gaming oc on the memory.

Strange you haven't gained any boost bins though. What does it do now and what would it do previously? For reference using heaven as an example previously I was able to get the core to 3135mhz at 55deg but under water could now reach 3180mhz at 40 deg ( artifacts at 3180 ) so around 3 boost bins due to temp . It will drop its 1st bin at about 43 deg . 3165mhz is about the max stable I can get my core without it producing artifacts.

I will agree from a performance point of view watercooling hardly offers anything over air cooling this time . Only plus I can see is a lot less noise , potentially better looks although the FE is stunning design and the card being a lot smaller in a waterblock .

Didn't see this post.
I was getting the black screens too on air with max oc applied on my old system. I thought it was the DDR4 3800 CL14 Ram degrading so down clocked it to XMP.
I've only tried Port Royal and Speedway so far. On Air I think Port Royal maxed out at 3060mhz and Speedway 3105mhz. Under water Its 3075 Mhz on Port Royal and 3105mhz on Speedway. I haven't tried a curve yet. Heaven will be a good one to try too.
Im also using this new 17 mk/w Ocool Apex thermal paste which may need some time to cure. Its at least a month of testing which will be fun for me, but horrible for the family as it can get quite addictive

 

[Jay-G25]

Didn't see this post.
I was getting the black screens too on air with max oc applied on my old system. I thought it was the DDR4 3800 CL14 Ram degrading so down clocked it to XMP.
I've only tried Port Royal and Speedway so far. On Air I think Port Royal maxed out at 3060mhz and Speedway 3105mhz. Under water Its 3075 Mhz on Port Royal and 3105mhz on Speedway. I haven't tried a curve yet. Heaven will be a good one to try too.
Im also using this new 17 mk/w Ocool Apex thermal paste which may need some time to cure. Its at least a month of testing which will be fun for me, but horrible for the family as it can get quite addictive

Looks like you got a top grade card if you can achieve over 3.1Ghz in port royal , my max is 3075/3090 on port royal... your memory goes pretty high as well so will all help towards the benchmarks . I can get my core to 3180Mhz in heaven but will start to artifact so assume this is the limit of the core at my current temp which ranges from 30-45deg in heaven. My FE would blackscreen on air when memory was set to +1550 but was stable after a quick benchmark to heat up the ram, it's bizarre that the memory is so sensitive to temp this generation

 

[OC2000]

This helps add a couple of bins

 

[Jay-G25]

This helps add a couple of bins

A man after my own heart , love a bit of PC in garden benching I've not done mine since Jan 2021 so high time i got it outside again .... hopefully stays dry the next couple of nights

Must say it worked as got my best benchmark scores with the water at 5 deg ..

 

[^JP^]

@OC2000 what are your core to water deltas like with what TIM?
Did you try Liquid Metal like Jay?

I’m getting my gear ready on air at the moment for testing, so soon considering what the “best” block installation will be.

Thanks

 

[Jay-G25]

@OC2000 what are your core to water deltas like with what TIM?
Did you try Liquid Metal like Jay?

I’m getting my gear ready on air at the moment for testing, so soon considering what the “best” block installation will be.

Thanks

@Colonel_Klinck changed from paste to Liquid metal and was surprised at the delta difference he got , it certainly works on these cards

 

[^JP^]

@Colonel_Klinck changed from paste to Liquid metal and was surprised at the delta difference he got , it certainly works on these cards

Yeah from everything I’ve seen it does seem to be the best, still think I’m going to use the ek paste and see what it’s like first.
Just gathering data!
Did Klinck post any before and after temps?

 

[Jay-G25]

Yeah from everything I’ve seen it does seem to be the best, still think I’m going to use the ek paste and see what it’s like first.
Just gathering data!
Did Klinck post any before and after temps?

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

 

[OC2000]

@OC2000 what are your core to water deltas like with what TIM?
Did you try Liquid Metal like Jay?

I’m getting my gear ready on air at the moment for testing, so soon considering what the “best” block installation will be.

Thanks

With a Port Royal bench I did earlier. The Water temp was 8C, The GPU idle was 8C and looking at the 3d Mark result the GPU got to 31C.

Im using OCool Apex TIM 17 W/mK. I spread it on pretty thinly. Not sure if I could do better, but temps seem ok.
Not doing liquid metal. I've seen horror Youtube videos with that stuff, so staying away from it.

 

[Jay-G25]

With a Port Royal bench I did earlier. The Water temp was 8C, The GPU idle was 8C and looking at the 3d Mark result the GPU got to 31C.

Im using OCool Apex TIM 17 W/mK. I spread it on pretty thinly. Not sure if I could do better, but temps seem ok.
Not doing liquid metal. I've seen horror Youtube videos with that stuff, so staying away from it.

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 .

No need to be scared of Liquid Metal , just must take sensible precautions and be careful when getting it out the syringe and all will be good . used in on my Strix for over a year no issue at all temps were stunning and again on this 4090 no issue

Don't be like this guy , owner clearly hasn't got a clue

 

[0121danwilliams84]

EK 4090 TUF Block on the way woop! Few available in the UK now finally.

 

[OC2000]

EK 4090 TUF Block on the way woop! Few available in the UK now finally.

if you have any coil whine at all the block will amplify it. don't add the back plate VRM pad will solve it and also for some reason allowed me to increase max mem oc

 

[0121danwilliams84]

if you have any coil whine at all the block will amplify it. don't add the back plate VRM pad will solve it and also for some reason allowed me to increase max mem oc

Yes, I am fully expecting that, but the coil whine is so far a lot less than I had with my 2080 Ti with the stock cooler on. At this point I just want to use my expensive paperweight as it doesn't even fit in the case.

 

[Jay-G25]

So as its currently freezing here yesterday i decided to put the PC outside again and see if i could improve on any score 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

It is annoying that these cards are so sensitive to temperature on the memory yet the core loves being cold , i wouldn't mind trying the card with no thermal pads tbh to see where it ended up sitting on the memory as i really cant think of any other way to heat it up enough to remain stable when pushing the clocks up

Few pics :

My cat was not impressed

Temps in Port Royal , Delta is a bit higher than normal as Liquid metal isn't so good when water this cold

 

[Bubo]

It is annoying that these cards are so sensitive to temperature on the memory yet the core loves being cold , i wouldn't mind trying the card with no thermal pads tbh to see where it ended up sitting on the memory as i really cant think of any other way to heat it up enough to remain stable when pushing the clocks up

This may be the one time it would be better to leave the plastic protective film on something you want to cool, e.g. put some Sellotape on the ram between the pads and block, so it doesn't lose all cooling but should get to a higher equilibrium temp than with pads only?

 

[OC2000]

Someone has said they get full VRAM OC back leaving the plastic on one side of the thermal pad. I’ll give that a go next week when I’m back from holiday.

 

[Jay-G25]

Someone has said they get full VRAM OC back leaving the plastic on one side of the thermal pad. I’ll give that a go next week when I’m back from holiday.

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

 

[^JP^]

Think I’ll leave the plastic on my memory pads then, sticky side on the chips then plastic touching the block.

Wish me luck!

 

[Jay-G25]

Think I’ll leave the plastic on my memory pads then, sticky side on the chips then plastic touching the block.

Wish me luck!

Sounds like a plan

Let us know how you get on please and that's what i would do is keep the plastic on between pad and block section