1. Using hair dryer heated the warranty stickers on GPU die brace. Carefully using a Stanley knife blade edge I lifted an edge of stickers and using a tweezer removed them.
2. Removed 4 screws from GPU die brace, in a kris kross pattern. I undid them equally, when I thought I may be nearing undoing them fully, I braced the arms so no ping of screw/brace happened.
3. Warmed GPU back plate using hairdryer, then holding GPU together flipped it, applied heat again to heatsink and was able to remove it with ease. Detaching fan cable was also then easier and done.
4. The pads below the VRM/VRAM heatsink are thick and sticky. Removing the heatsink again required heat from hairdryer.
5. Out of the 5 strips of thermal pads which came with water block I only needed 3 strips to do as in photo below. I applied TIM by spreading it over die using a strip of plastic card.
6. I used 5 screws around the die with springs, washers between spring and PCB. I tightened evenly in a kris kross method. Once I felt high resistance, I undid the screws 1/4 of a turn. Two of the screws were black short ones with no springs.
7. Placed back plate on and used the long black screws.
The gap between screws around GPU die and back plate can be seen in below photos.
Due to the price of this GPU block and backplate I spoiled myself with B-VGA-SC-X. This has a molex power cable, as it used 5V I was able to remove and place in with water pump molex.
Now for cooling performance gains vs air cooler.
Rig Photo and specs
Fah (CPU/GPU) Average GPU Temp 64C vs 44C Hotspot Temp 74C vs 52C
Realbench (CPU/GPU) Average GPU Temp 62C vs 39C Hotspot Temp 73C vs 47C
3DM FS Stress test Average GPU Temp 58C vs 40C Hotspot Temp 74C vs 51C
3DM TS Stress test Average GPU Temp 69C vs 47C Hotspot Temp 86C vs 61C
2. Removed 4 screws from GPU die brace, in a kris kross pattern. I undid them equally, when I thought I may be nearing undoing them fully, I braced the arms so no ping of screw/brace happened.
3. Warmed GPU back plate using hairdryer, then holding GPU together flipped it, applied heat again to heatsink and was able to remove it with ease. Detaching fan cable was also then easier and done.
4. The pads below the VRM/VRAM heatsink are thick and sticky. Removing the heatsink again required heat from hairdryer.
5. Out of the 5 strips of thermal pads which came with water block I only needed 3 strips to do as in photo below. I applied TIM by spreading it over die using a strip of plastic card.
6. I used 5 screws around the die with springs, washers between spring and PCB. I tightened evenly in a kris kross method. Once I felt high resistance, I undid the screws 1/4 of a turn. Two of the screws were black short ones with no springs.
7. Placed back plate on and used the long black screws.
The gap between screws around GPU die and back plate can be seen in below photos.
Due to the price of this GPU block and backplate I spoiled myself with B-VGA-SC-X. This has a molex power cable, as it used 5V I was able to remove and place in with water pump molex.
Now for cooling performance gains vs air cooler.
Rig Photo and specs
- Bykski CPU/GPU block, Arctic Silver 5 TIM.
- 2x Magicool G2 Slim 360 in series, Arctic Cooling F12 fans on rads, top has 3 as exhaust, front has 5 as intake, the 2 on inside are just to aid airflow in case rather than create push/pull setup.
- Rear Exhaust and RAM cooling is Silent Wings 3 1000 RPM models.
- D5 pump, distilled water with ~20% mix of Mayhems XT-1 clear concentrate.
Fah (CPU/GPU) Average GPU Temp 64C vs 44C Hotspot Temp 74C vs 52C
Realbench (CPU/GPU) Average GPU Temp 62C vs 39C Hotspot Temp 73C vs 47C
3DM FS Stress test Average GPU Temp 58C vs 40C Hotspot Temp 74C vs 51C
3DM TS Stress test Average GPU Temp 69C vs 47C Hotspot Temp 86C vs 61C
