AMD R9 290X with Liquid Ultra TIM, does it make a difference?

[solidsnake1607]

Hello everyone, i'm getting a Sapphire R9 290X next week and i'm aware about their horrible temperatures and cooling solution, i want a Blower Style Cooler like the reference desing, i'm not interested in an aftermarket open cooler style to blow all the hot air inside my case.

I have a bit of Collaboratory Liquid Ultra here, i saw that silicon TIMs only delays the throttling, but i couldn't find anywhere someone trying this TIM, which is great in my cpu (Really great)

I'm aware that it is very conductive and could void my warranty thats why i'm asking, i'd not like to take the risk if o do't get any benefit.ç

Thanks you Folks, i hope some of you can show me the results. Cheers :thumbsup:

 

[blastingcap]

There was a recent thread where someone examined their liquid TIM after a year or two and found that it had clumped up or something weird. Tom's Hardware did a re-application using one of the very best TIMs, almost as good as liquid and it barely improved performance. IMHO it's probably not worth voiding your warranty to eke out barely any more perf and possibly having to reapply TIM.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290x-thermal-paste-efficiency,3678.html

 

[solidsnake1607]

There was a recent thread where someone examined their liquid TIM after a year or two and found that it had clumped up or something weird. Tom's Hardware did a re-application using one of the very best TIMs, almost as good as liquid and it barely improved performance. IMHO it's probably not worth voiding your warranty to eke out barely any more perf and possibly having to reapply TIM.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290x-thermal-paste-efficiency,3678.html

Yeah i was looking at that right now, by liquid TIM you are talking about Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra? Thats the TIM i have right now, i also have some Gelid GC Extreme and MX 4 around here. The 290x im buying has no warranty, im giving my 7970 and 200 bucks for that card, do you think its worth it?

 

[blastingcap]

Yeah i was looking at that right now, by liquid TIM you are talking about Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra? Thats the TIM i have right now, i also have some Gelid GC Extreme and MX 4 around here. The 290x im buying has no warranty, im giving my 7970 and 200 bucks for that card, do you think its worth it?

I think it was Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra yes. GC Extreme is very, very, very good, I would use that instead, just in case you run into the same problem as the other guy who got clumped up liquid TIM after a year or two. You don't have a warranty anyway so as long as you know what you are doing and are careful, you should be able to swap TIM pretty easily.

 

[solidsnake1607]

I think it was Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra yes. GC Extreme is very, very, very good, I would use that instead, just in case you run into the same problem as the other guy who got clumped up liquid TIM after a year or two. You don't have a warranty anyway so as long as you know what you are doing and are careful, you should be able to swap TIM pretty easily.

Do you have those random blackscreens in your R9 290s that people talk about all the time? Thanks for the tip, i'll keep it in mind.

 

[blastingcap]

I have not experienced blackscreens but I did have issues going to the next drivers so I am still no 13.11 beta5 or whatever the mid-December beta driver was. No issues so far with those drivers.

This is a great TIM comparison thread, GC Extreme was one of the very best they ever tested: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?268741-Skinnee-Labs-The-TIM-Thread

Unfortunately the skinneelabs.com site is down now so you can't see all of the data anymore. Prolimatech PK-1 is also another top-notch TIM. MX-4 is a (very small) notch below GC Extreme and PK-1.

The liquid stuff they tested was slightly better than GC Extreme, a couple of degrees maybe, but given the cost and possible issues with it hardening and clumping up over the years, it doesn't seem worth it to me to use that over GC Extreme which is known to be reliable and almost as good.

 

[Gloomy]

I heard you can drop temps by 10c if you lap the heatsink.

 

[chimaxi83]

I have CL Ultra on both of my water blocked 290s. Not sure if it makes a difference, because I didn't test with normal TIM. My load temps are good though, ~45C on average.

 

[solidsnake1607]

I have not experienced blackscreens but I did have issues going to the next drivers so I am still no 13.11 beta5 or whatever the mid-December beta driver was. No issues so far with those drivers.

This is a great TIM comparison thread, GC Extreme was one of the very best they ever tested: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?268741-Skinnee-Labs-The-TIM-Thread

Unfortunately the skinneelabs.com site is down now so you can't see all of the data anymore. Prolimatech PK-1 is also another top-notch TIM. MX-4 is a (very small) notch below GC Extreme and PK-1.

The liquid stuff they tested was slightly better than GC Extreme, a couple of degrees maybe, but given the cost and possible issues with it hardening and clumping up over the years, it doesn't seem worth it to me to use that over GC Extreme which is known to be reliable and almost as good.

Thanks you Pal you were really kind and helpful. I ll go ahead with gelid. It seems to be risky to use CLU so ill go with the safe tim. Im planning to do a custom fan profile to make it reach about 65% at 90c so i'll delay a bit more the throtle. If i play at 1080p and use vsync the card wont get hotter than 70ºc i think.
Any tip or advice to apply thermal compund in a GPU ? Should i put a dot in the gpu and a dot in the contact copper or spread over the gpu and a small drop in the copper.. or only one side?

 

[blastingcap]

You're welcome. Everyone has their favorite method. In this case, I would put a medium-size dot on the heatspreader only, not both sides. Then I would wrap my finger with a plastic bag and use it to smear the dot around the heatspreader to try to get an even coating all the way to the edges. The thinner the coating, the better. Some people use credit cards to try to get a thin, even coating, but I think that's harder.

 

[lavaheadache]

You're welcome. Everyone has their favorite method. In this case, I would put a medium-size dot on the heatspreader only, not both sides. Then I would wrap my finger with a plastic bag and use it to smear the dot around the heatspreader to try to get an even coating all the way to the edges. The thinner the coating, the better. Some people use credit cards to try to get a thin, even coating, but I think that's harder.

I started doing this method too a couple years ago with good results. With the blob/grain of rice method there is too much chance of uneven spreading due to setting down the heatsink unevenly.

Now with that said, I believe that people put too much weight in TIM. Sure there is a big difference between good and bad TIM, and a good and bad application but I don't think there is much difference between a great and pretty good application or TIM.

I remember wayyyyyy back when I was first getting serious about the hobby that I would reseat heatsinks a couple times just to check if my method was working out. I would wonder while stress testing overclocks if my settings were unstable due to bad TIM jobs and end up redoing them over and over again going all out with thorough alcohol wipe downs inbetween applications and trying my hardest to make sure I was setting the heatsink down just perfectly and tightening it down with as even as force as I could.

Now, I don't stress about it much cause I realize how insignificant the difference is between the perfect job and the good job is. I blame my previous actions on all the nut jobs I was following on forums. I would go through tubes of TIM in weeks. Now a single small tube will last me a solid year of quite a few builds for other people and even my own excessive upgrade cycle. I do however redo most TIM jobs on newly purchased graphics cards since oem's tend to do a terrible job, allowing for a noticeable improvement with my own application

 

[solidsnake1607]

Thanks for all the help everyone. Finally i ended up buying a sapphire 290 tri x OC instead of the rererence 290x. Omg its so quiet and cool! I didnt ever bothered about replacing the tim. This thing dont go above 69 in BF4. i recommend it to everyone

 

[Sunburn74]

What are prices like in argentina BTW?

 

[solidsnake1607]

What are prices like in argentina BTW?

They are like shit dude.. the 290 tri x is 850 u$s, the 780ti is 1000 u$s .. an I7 4770k is 732 u$s. My salary is u$s 745 per month. But i cant scape from here sadly, wish i could use my money and get out of here right now but i must deal with it. Food is also too expensive. Everything is fucked up. We cannot buy Dollars (u$s) to protect our savings. We can only use PESOS (ARS) which their value is lower each week. Inflation last year reached 30%.
If you take me to Boston i'll work for you and i'll give you my sis as a sex slave. LOL just kidding