*R9 290X Prolimatech MK-26 Fitting Guide*

[LtMatt]

+1 for Gentle Typhoon fans. You will see a much bigger drop in temps with GT's. They're really good at forcing air through the fins.

 

[WalderX]

Those noiseblocker fans are decent, but they're not even close to Scythe Gt's I'm afraid.
They've been recommended mainly for low noise purposes and not outright performance. The GT's provide both low noise and great static pressure and I'd be surprised if the Noiseblockers give much, if any improvement over your NZXT fans tbh.

I thought you were using a fan controller btw? Is it built into the case or something?

OK have just changed my order to the Scythes

The fan controller is the NZXT case one, so perhaps it's not giving out enough juice to power the fans at max RPM?

 

[Uncle Petey]

Good choice

I dunno if your case controller is giving them full whack or not tbh...
What mobo are you using btw?

 

[LtMatt]

Good choice x2.

 

[WalderX]

Yeah they look the business! Though I would have liked auto fan control from the 290X, shame they aren't pwm. I have read that they are not too loud at 100% though so might just plug them directly into the PSU tbh

I keep chucking money at this and never really needed to, I just can't help but tinker with things and take them apart - it's in my nature I guess! I'm only gaming at 1080p so the 290X is already complete overkill!

Mobo is P8-Z68 Deluxe.

 

[Yaayuh!]

Great post. Nice guide indeed.

+1

 

[Uncle Petey]

Mobo is P8-Z68 Deluxe.

Good news!
Your mobo can run Asus AI suite II. This means that while it may not be officially supported (like my P8Z77V-LX), you can run Fan Xpert 2 which allows you to easily control 3pin fans via the 4pin chassis headers. Yay!

Hopefully, this isn't a feature that was introduced on the Z77 platform and still applies to your mobo. Fingers crossed!

Set up your trust account ('User's trust' button on the bottom right of your post) and send me a message. I'll email you the exact file without you having to sift through the Asus site
Install Ai suite II (if you haven't already) and don't install fan xpert (uninstall if you have it).

 

[WalderX]

Good news!
Set up your trust account ('User's trust' button on the bottom right of your post) and send me a message.

Done. Thanks for all the help!

I guess I will need a 3-pin fan power doubler for this to work - will grab one off ebay if so.

EDIT: Is there a risk of blowing the motherboard header running 2 fans off 1 port?

 

[Uncle Petey]

Not at all. I use two on a mobo header with this adaptor. It's for PWM fans, but it works fine with these.

Sent the file btw. It's about 21mb, so I hope there aren't any filesize restrictions on your email account

 

[WalderX]

Not at all. I use two on a mobo header with this adaptor. It's for PWM fans, but it works fine with these.

Sent the file btw. It's about 21mb, so I hope there aren't any filesize restrictions on your email account

Lovely, thanks. I use Hotmail so pretty sure they are good for 25mb+.

We might be getting ahead of ourselves on this anyway, my current NZXT fan specs are:

1300 RPM +/-10% 47.27 CFM

So the fan controller is probably doing fine, it's just the fans aren't particularly fast. I see the Scythe's push out at least 10 more CFM's and 500 more RPM's - hopefully they will be the answer to the problems!

 

[Uncle Petey]

If it helps, I used Alpenfohn wingboosts which are 1500rpm/61cfm and they got blitzed by the GT's on both a K2 heatsink and the fan bracket of the Peter.

You can't really trust CFM ratings anyway as they're all either measured differently by each manufacturer or are just outright lies
Either way, it's the static pressure that's important here. CFM is more important with airflow, not airblow

Basically, on a heatsink, a radiator or restrictive space, GT's are king with only a very small handful of other fans coming close.

 

[WalderX]

So we are looking about about 0.4v~ vdroop on the 290X (i have a sapphire) i am not sure if that is normal but might be good to know when pushing the cards a bit more.

There is a custom bios floating about named PT3 that disables vdroop and throttling, or there is one called PT1 that disables just throttling. Obviously I dont recommend flashing these when using air cooling, definitely not the PT3 at least because the voltage will instantly be a chunk higher than your current bios.

 

[LtMatt]

Petey this should interest you. Found some dude on another forum who stuck a couple of Accelero Extreme III's on his 290X's. Looks like he did a good job as well. Looks like they've improved the design of the accelero and beefed up the heatsinks slightly. Three of those L shaped sinks seem to cover the right vrm side now. On the left looks to be a brand new heatsink covering that left vrm. He used the permanent adhesive on the vram/vrm chips as well, so they won't be coming off easily without lighter fluid.

Spoiler

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1788658

 

[Uncle Petey]

Looks like he used fat dollops on the VRAM No need really. Tape would've sufficed.

Still, nice to know it fits properly.

 

[WalderX]

Nice looks good!

 

[WalderX]

@ Uncle Petey - So I'm getting the Scythes today and will be reapplying the heatsink to vrm, meaning I will have to reapply the thermal paste to the die. In your opinion what is the definitive best way to apply thermal paste to a gpu? I know there is a billion forum threads on this but still no-one seems to agree and wanted your opinion?

I'm using PK-3 so don't need to use the spread method if you don't think that is best.

EDIT: Also taking into account that the die on the 290x is oblong - so perhaps the spread method is best?

 

[Jakus]

Nice work, that thermal paste looks nice to work with

Question, looking at that cooler, would it not have fitted over the ATI Cooler backplate ?

 

[WalderX]

Nice work, that thermal paste looks nice to work with

Question, looking at that cooler, would it not have fitted over the ATI Cooler backplate ?

Yeah it's ok to work with, I'm only used to Artic Silver though which seems more fluid. I found this PK-3 does dry out quickly. I tried the plastic bag method to spread it at first but after a few wipes it just all went clumpy and stuck to the plastic, so I then used a credit card which worked ok.

Because the die is oblong I don't think that just using a small blob in the middle would spread correctly so I used a combination of both methods.

I never thought about using the backplate that came with the 290x but I think the screwholes might be too small - might give it a go later to let you know as I've gotta take it apart again anyway lol

 

[Uncle Petey]

@ Uncle Petey - So I'm getting the Scythes today and will be reapplying the heatsink to vrm, meaning I will have to reapply the thermal paste to the die. In your opinion what is the definitive best way to apply thermal paste to a gpu? I know there is a billion forum threads on this but still no-one seems to agree and wanted your opinion?

I'm using PK-3 so don't need to use the spread method if you don't think that is best.

EDIT: Also taking into account that the die on the 290x is oblong - so perhaps the spread method is best?

Erm, I dunno about definitive, but I'd say either the line or the spread method considering that it's oblong.
It probably wouldn't make much difference either way

ED: The latest version of GPU-Z now shows VRM temps btw.

 

[WalderX]

Erm, I dunno about definitive, but I'd say either the line or the spread method considering that it's oblong.
It probably wouldn't make much difference either way

ED: The latest version of GPU-Z now shows VRM temps btw.

Ok yeah though so. I think I will use the spread method again, perhaps without the extra blob in the middle but use a bit more paste on the spread just to be sure.

I saw that post in the owners club re gpu-z, will install it at lunchtime and see what temps I'm getting.

Finally got to play BF4 this morning, the reason I got this card in the first place! Getting around 85 FPS maxed out and in silence CPU also only gets to around 50 degrees tops, which is great considering the 290x is now venting into my case didn't check the 290x temp as I didn't have gpu tweak logging turned on.

This is with a clean install of the new Beta8 drivers and @ 1080p. Time to invest in a new 27"+ monitor now... I feel a new thread coming up for that I think!