Installing An Arctic Accelero Xtreme III To A HIS R9 290.

[old gamer]

ive been looking into a few options for the 290 cooling and the Arctic Accelero Xtreme III looks a good choice for cost and performance

 

[Terminal_Boy]

Well done, great guide.

Put mine on too, along with the beast cooling the vrms.

"He Who Dares, Dremels.."

Glad to know yours worked out great too.

 

[BigBANGtheory]

what made you pick this cooler vs. say the MK.26 ?

 

[Terminal_Boy]

what made you pick this cooler vs. say the MK.26 ?

I didn't think there was enough room between the 290 and the HDD bay to allow for a cooler/fan assembly 3.5 slots thick.

 

[teppic]

What's the noise level like with the GPU maxed out?

 

[Terminal_Boy]

Using the 12V feed to the fans, they run at a constant speed regardless of load.

Slightly quieter than the stock cooler at idle and way quieter under full load. Much quieter than my HIS IcyQ 7950 Boost under full load. AX III's fans are only just audible over my fairly quiet case fans.

 

[1mm3]

So all you need to buy is these 2 products:
1. ARCTIC COOLING Xtreme III
2. Alpenföhn Passive DRAM / VRAM Chip Coolers

They will include EVERYTHING you need to do the above mod? ie. it includes all the thermal paste/ insulating strips etc..

Overall, how long did it take from start to finish?

 

[wazza300]

good job op

@1mm3 the accelero comes with adhesive and insulating strips,dont worry bout fan noise either,its silent even at 100% fanspeed

 

[Terminal_Boy]

So all you need to buy is these 2 products:
1. ARCTIC COOLING Xtreme III
2. Alpenföhn Passive DRAM / VRAM Chip Coolers

They will include EVERYTHING you need to do the above mod? ie. it includes all the thermal paste/ insulating strips etc..

Overall, how long did it take from start to finish?

Yes, you only need those 2 items.

Thermal paste is loaded onto the main GPU heatsink, so you don't need to buy any more of this.

Both the Xtreme III kit and the Alpenfohn chip coolers come with a tube of thermal adhesive, so you don't need to buy any of that either.

I'd recommend getting some heatsink cleaner (I used the Akasa one) and plenty of cotton buds/Q-tips to get everything clean.

If I hadn't made any errors, I reckon an hour to strip, clean and fit the chip coolers. I left the thermal adhesive to cure over night.

Then 30 minutes to fit the main cooler, , install the card into the PC, supply the 12V fan feed from the PSU, re-fit the case side and fire it up.

 

[Terminal_Boy]

This might help..



Note A: Don't forget to fit the 3 tall "F" shaped chip coolers from the A X III kit here.

Note B: The Alpenfohn chip coolers are too tall to sit here. Use the A X III ones.

Note C: I ended up using the A X III VRM coolers here as they looked to have a better foot print.

Note D: This cooler only covers 2/3 of the chip, so I put a piece of thermal tape on the other 1/3 so it touches the mounting plate.

 

[BigBANGtheory]

Note D: This cooler only covers 2/3 of the chip, so I put a piece of thermal tape on the other 1/3 so it touches the mounting plate.

Though I guess you could if so inclined choose to cut into the shim/mounting plate with a saw & file to make room for the passive heat sink

Thanks for the guide btw, as a new R9 290X owner myself this might come in handy when I get to hear the acoustics first hand.

 

[teppic]

Using the 12V feed to the fans, they run at a constant speed regardless of load.

Slightly quieter than the stock cooler at idle and way quieter under full load. Much quieter than my HIS IcyQ 7950 Boost under full load. AX III's fans are only just audible over my fairly quiet case fans.

Sounds good, thanks.

 

[Terminal_Boy]

After an hour of Unigine Heaven 4.0:



1100MHz GPU Clock / +20% Power

 

[BaDBoY_uK]

After an hour of Unigine Heaven 4.0:



1100MHz GPU Clock / +20% Power

Wow! Nice job

 

[Marine-RX179]

After an hour of Unigine Heaven 4.0:



1100MHz GPU Clock / +20% Power

For those interested in the comparison to the reference cooler, here's the result of running Heaven for 45mins on 1100MHz/1500MHz/+31mV (+20mV was stable for Heaven, but not stable for Sleeping Dog's bench so I increased it to + 31mV). Settings, fanspeed details are in the post below:

So...I had a bit more play today on the VTX (unlocked) 290x, and played around with fanspeed and overclocking a bit, trying to find the best balance between voltage/temp, overclock and fanspeed, and I have settled on using 1100/1500 for now, which required a slight bump in voltage of +30mV (upped from 1250mV to 1280mV), and change the fan profile to speed up sooner at a lower temp (70C at 50%, 80C at 55%, 90C at 60%)...and here's the results of running Heaven on 1920 res, 4xAA, Extreme Tesselation for 45mins, and it never went above 55% fan speed and 81C:

My room is around 18-19C.

Mine is unlocked to 290x, but should still be good contrast. It's good to know that the Xtreme III shaved 20C of the temp (and with the benefit being much quieter than the reference cooler at 3000rpm).

 

[tommybhoy]

"He Who Dares, Dremels.."

Glad to know yours worked out great too.

BF4 64 man DM, 1 hour playtime, 290(X) 52c@1150/1400+62mv under my ACExtreme on 100%(which is a tiny bit louder than the stock blower@idle).

Note D: This cooler only covers 2/3 of the chip, so I put a piece of thermal tape on the other 1/3 so it touches the mounting plate.

Very good tip, never thought of that, got me thinking, could maybe even use one of the original vram pads too.

 

[Terminal_Boy]

Thanks!

I know that 72 deg C is way, way below the Tmax rating for VRM1, but I just wish I could figure out why it's no being cooled as well as VRM2.

Knowing which chip is is might help I guess...

 

[orange_smurf]

Thanks for the guide Terminal_Boy. I have to say i'm tempted to try this out now.....

 

[Terminal_Boy]

It's pretty straightforward if you follow the instructions and you aren't full of max strength cold and flu pills.

 

[atomic7431]

if only i could find stock of the ARCTIC COOLING Xtreme III, difficult to source now it seems, shame ocuk dont stock them.