Watercooling MSI R9 390 Gaming 8GB

Oriaz · 8 Mar 2016 at 15:00

I literally just built a Crossfire R9 390X setup at work this morning using Asus cards and it's running great.

I haven't checked the temps yet, but I'll give it a go so I can compare that with what I was seeing on my own single-card system. Not sure I can convince work that water cooling is a priority

Orch · 8 Mar 2016 at 15:14

I don't know what you do for work, but it sounds infinitely more fun that the pensions I'm currently reviewing

Would be interesting to hear the temps though. I can only imagine the top card must be ready to cook on!

Oriaz · 8 Mar 2016 at 19:18

Hehe, I work in the games industry so I can get away with messing about with PC's at work quite a lot. It has it's moments, but I imagine it's certainly more entertaining than pensions

I didn't get a chance to check the crossfire temps in the end, but I've just been running Heaven for about 20 mins here, and I also didn't go above 48 degrees! WoW is still the thing that pushes it the highest!

Cheers

Oriaz · 9 Mar 2016 at 12:54

So I just ran the temperature software on the machine at work with 2 x R9 390X cards (with standard air-cooling). I ran the basic 3D Mark tests, and after the cycle, the maximum temps were:

GPU1: 95
GPU2: 93
CPU: 76

So that's clearly very hot .. I could probably fry an egg on the top of the case! Might be worth taking the cards apart and re-doing the heat transfer paste if it's anything like my MSI card .. but these ones are ASUS. The CPU just has a universal Arctic Cooler fan on it, but it's much better than the stock fan that ships with the CPU.

Either way, I am getting about 50% of those temps with the water-cooling, so that's a good indicator of the benefit

Orch · 9 Mar 2016 at 13:15

Blimey! They must be throttling at those temps mustn't they? Interesting that they are both similar, I would have thought the top card would be much higher, but there isn't much in it.

Reapplied paste sounds like a good idea. Let us know the new temps if you do

Oriaz · 16 Mar 2016 at 15:21

So how's it looking now that you've had some time to put it through its' paces?
Still working great on my side compared to the standard setup!

Orch · 17 Mar 2016 at 10:30

Yeh really well. Still haven't gamed that much as I managed to break the old pump and had to wait for a replacement. But it seems to idle at 40° at peak at 58° and that's on fan and pump settings to be as quiet as possible.

So yeh a million times better than 84° and GPU fans at full chat!

I did some benches at 1200/1500 with extra power chucked in and seemed to handle it ok as well. Previously I would have been touching 90° so backed off.

I still run it daily at 1160/1500 though.

Really pleased.

Although I must say, now the loop is finished, I want to build another one

Oriaz · 17 Mar 2016 at 12:21

haha .. awesome, glad it's all working.
I'm wondering if I can fit a 2nd one in now too, but I would need another radiator.

Orch · 17 Mar 2016 at 12:39

What's your current rad setup?

Oriaz · 17 Mar 2016 at 12:49

I just have a single 360 radiator up at the top of the case right now for the CPU and 1x GPU

Orch · 17 Mar 2016 at 13:25

Ah. Yeh might be asking a bit much.

I should be ok with a 360 + 240, but I'm trying really hard not to spend any more money right now.

However should one pop up in the MM once the new cards come out . .

Danielwhitt · 12 Apr 2016 at 14:27

Sorry for hijacking the thread, just wanted to say thank you for the ideas I took from this thread, helped me know end.
I has a crossfire setup of these cards and couldn't settle the temperatures, so I decided to water-cooled them, but didn't want a full loop setup, more of an aio solution.
So I went with a kraken g10 and corsair h75 aio and it worked great, until I realised my vrm temps were going nuts. So after reading this thread numerous times, I decided to butcher the stock cooler and take of the vrm heatsink and attach that with the thermal pads to see if it made a difference, and low an behold it did. Just stuck a few heatsinksnon top and now, I have great temps and a lot cooler vrm temps.

Dave2150 · 12 Apr 2016 at 18:53

Orch said:
Yeh really well. Still haven't gamed that much as I managed to break the old pump and had to wait for a replacement. But it seems to idle at 40° at peak at 58° and that's on fan and pump settings to be as quiet as possible.

So yeh a million times better than 84° and GPU fans at full chat!

I did some benches at 1200/1500 with extra power chucked in and seemed to handle it ok as well. Previously I would have been touching 90° so backed off.

I still run it daily at 1160/1500 though.

Really pleased.

Although I must say, now the loop is finished, I want to build another one

Which pump are you using and how loud is it, at it's minimum speed setting?

I'm considering watercooling my MSI 390X due to the insane noise at load. The rest of my system is practically silent.

Many thanks.

Orch · 12 Apr 2016 at 20:17

Hi,

I'm using this pump now - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ek-water-blocks-ek-xtop-revo-d5-pwm-incl.-pump-wc-885-ek.html

According to Asus fan xpert 3 it's lowest PMW setting is around 20% power and you would have a job to know it's on. I tend to run it at around 35% and it's almost silent. I would say it would probably be inaudible if I added some proper foam cushioning rather the makeshift effort I have in there at the moment. A job for another day.

Basically watercooled it will be way quieter under load than the air cooler, but you'll still hear the rad fans when gaming.

Orch · 12 Apr 2016 at 20:18

I've also managed to benchmark this card at 1225/1700 clocks now too. Second highest AMD card on the Heaven 4 benchmark thread

Dave2150 · 13 Apr 2016 at 04:08

Orch said:
Hi,

I'm using this pump now - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ek-water-blocks-ek-xtop-revo-d5-pwm-incl.-pump-wc-885-ek.html

According to Asus fan xpert 3 it's lowest PMW setting is around 20% power and you would have a job to know it's on. I tend to run it at around 35% and it's almost silent. I would say it would probably be inaudible if I added some proper foam cushioning rather the makeshift effort I have in there at the moment. A job for another day.

Basically watercooled it will be way quieter under load than the air cooler, but you'll still hear the rad fans when gaming.

Many thanks

Adding that pump to my WC list, next I need to decide on radiator, and whether or not to watercool my CPU at the same time.

Orch · 13 Apr 2016 at 09:35

I think if you're doing a custom loop, you may as well cool both components at the same time. I'm using a single 360mm rad for both and it copes fine.