Ghetto Water Mod: Taming Crossfire R290s

[Martrox]

rev1 works better due to the holes aligning near perfect, but i could only get rev2 on ebay, which required a zip tie to act as an anchor for another zip tie to go through the PCB holes.

No...you are wrong. I've got the rev. 1 and you need to do serious mods to it. While the screwholes look like they are close, they are not. The front of the fins need to be ground off AND the contact point is too small, making you grind off each side to sit flat.....Got a rev 2 i'm gonna replace it with.

BTW, the Rev 2 fits a stock HD7970 without any ghetto at all.....

 

[Ken g6]

I'd worry about zip ties securing a heat sink. Specifically, I'd think they could bend over time which would loosen the heat sink. It may work for awhile, but keep watching your thermals.

 

[Imouto]

I'd worry about zip ties securing a heat sink. Specifically, I'd think they could bend over time which would loosen the heat sink. It may work for awhile, but keep watching your thermals.

I've worked a lot with zip ties and they're about the most unreliable thing over time. If you're using them for wiring they're wonderful but they get dry and really fragile. I remember breaking them with 2 fingers to replace the ones that didn't fall apart by themselves. Not saying that they will break in 2 years, but I wouldn't trust to them a $500+ card.

 

[Silverforce11]

No...you are wrong. I've got the rev. 1 and you need to do serious mods to it. While the screwholes look like they are close, they are not. The front of the fins need to be ground off AND the contact point is too small, making you grind off each side to sit flat.....Got a rev 2 i'm gonna replace it with.

BTW, the Rev 2 fits a stock HD7970 without any ghetto at all.....

Okay thanks for that, rev 2 work really well just need an extra zip tie and 1 bent fin (near the power plug!).

 

[Selmak]

Hi did you get the version 1 or version 2 rev 2? Enhancement Kit

 

[Hauk]

Good job on the VRM heatsinks

 

[kmartburrito]

Long time lurker, I just registered to post this for the OP and others like myself who will go down this road -

I'm going with an NZXT kraken g10, but the most important thing I wanted to post is this whole concern and idea behind the zip ties.

Yes, zip ties are phenomenal, but the concerns everyone has on here that have shared in this thread are spot-on. The biggest enemy of any zip tie (besides cutters, ha) is HEAT.

Odds are that Silverforce11 may never have issues with his heatsink cable ties. But it could break down, stretch, etc.

The fix? Tefzel or Nylon Heat Stabilized cable ties. See this link and read through. This is 100% applicable here for this application, considering how hot of a board we're working with.

http://www.cabletieguys.com/specialty-cable-ties.htm#tefzelties

Tefzel ties are stable up to 150 degrees C continuous use, and Heat Stabilized Nylon ties are stable up to 125 degrees C continuous use. They're a bit more strong than the Tefzel ties, but I don't think you could go wrong with either of them.

Due to the temporary nature of this mod, and being able to secure the heatsink in a non-permanent way, I will be purchasing the rev2 enhancement, some heat stabilized nylon ties, and I will be calling it a day

Hope this helps!

Oh also, an annoyance I had regarding some back and forths earlier in the thread, the VRM1 as we know is the long band of modules covered by the rev2 heatsink. VRM2 is NOT in the same group. VRM2 is (if you're looking straight at the card with the outputs on the left) a small cluster of three modules at the 10 O'clock hand of the GPU core. They are in a triangle pattern. Since these are not really located by any holes on the PCB, it will be difficult to cool them in a temporary manner like we're doing with VRM1. However, I'm hoping that the card will be cool enough like the gddr5 vram chips that we don't have to worry about it.

Silverforce11, how has your rig been now mining 24/7? Do your VRMs still do ok? Have you also messed with overclocking and watched the VRMs? I also wanted to ask what TIM you used underneath that VRM1 heatsink.

Thank you!!
-KB


EDIT - Added the link to the ones I purchased from Amazon, less than 10 bucks shipped for 100
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00..._ya_os_product

 

[Silverforce11]

I've noticed no degradation of any sort yet, temps are still the same as when it was brand new. Its mining 24/7 outside of a few benchmark runs and tweaking/OC testing.

The Mod and The Red Mod as this is known, with zip ties and such are well known on OC forums, zip ties are pretty damn resilient in my own experience with other usage but for a few extra $ sure, heat resistant zip ties are great.

VRM2 does not need any cooling, it drives the GDDR5 modules and it actually runs hotter on reference cards due to the heatplate heating up from the GPU contact, they run a lot cooler naked.

Mining seems to draw 30% extra current than gaming, on warmer days I am getting 87C VRM1 mining. Gaming or valley loop doesn't even heat it. Even OC to 1.1ghz its still sub 70C. I had a few valley loops at 1.2ghz and +100mV and it didn't even get to 80C. So some decent VRM sinks + fan + pressure = good.

 

[Zanovar]

Some good stuff silver*thumb up*,and some interesting reading.

 

[Smartazz]

I can't get the zip ties secure enough. How do you ensure proper contact?

 

[Silverforce11]

I can't get the zip ties secure enough. How do you ensure proper contact?

Use a hand clamp or heavy tweezers to get good contact on the zip tie extruding from the back plate metal mount, two fingers holding the "lock" zip tie down, then pull hard til you get the last "click" on the zip tie.

I did it recently on a gtx670 and it took a few minutes all up, very easy and fast once you get the hang of it.

You know u have good contact once the metal back plate is pushed all the way down on 4 points as if there was a screw in it (look at it b4 modding, its screwed in right next to the PCB).

 

[Smartazz]

Tried this a second time. This time I can run games but the temps immediately hit 94 and throttle. The radiator is really hot so the block is absorbing heat to be sure. Maybe it needs time to cure?

 

[Silverforce11]

Tried this a second time. This time I can run games but the temps immediately hit 94 and throttle. The radiator is really hot so the block is absorbing heat to be sure. Maybe it needs time to cure?

If it immediately hits 94C = you didnt have enough pressure on it. Its a very slow rise in temps due to the strong heat latency of water.

Take some pictures of the back plate if you can.

This is the kind of pressure you need, look at the zip tie dragging down the ties on the waterblock/pump. Heaps of tension. On the back, the metal backplate is right next to the PCB from tension.

 

[Smartazz]

Okay, my backplate doesn't have that much tension. It's difficult to get this much tension with zip ties. Fortunately as a side note my vrm temps are really good.

 

[Silverforce11]

Okay, my backplate doesn't have that much tension. It's difficult to get this much tension with zip ties. Fortunately as a side note my vrm temps are really good.

By fingers only, no its hard, you need a hand clamp to pull the zip tie for tension.

 

[Smartazz]

I got it to work, thanks. Gotta wait for the heatsink before I over clock now.

 

[wand3r3r]

That core temperature.

Have you overclocked them and checked how the VRMs (well everything) handles voltage?

I have to wonder about the zip ties and temperatures. Can you double up on them or does it seem like they are enough?

 

[Silverforce11]

I ran Valley at 1.2ghz with +100mV, VRM temps didn't even GAF not even close to mining temps.

People have been doing zip tie mods for years now, they are resilient things.

 

[wand3r3r]

I must say I'm fairly interested. It literally seems like the only way to tame multiple cards in crossfire short of going fully water (since I have my doubts on custom cards in crossfire going by experience with even cooler cards in crossfire). I doubt I'll try it now, but it's definitely peaked my interest.

I assume the water cooler fans output warm air, is it any less than the air coming out of the back of the reference cards? (subjectively)

 

[Silverforce11]

The Rad dumps warm air out, the reference cards blew HOT air. The difference is the Rad water temps rarely get above 45C, or about 15C over ambient for the 120mm rad and only 10C over ambient for the 240mm rad. It is just as effective as full watercooling for the core, but slightly worse for the VRM, but still very good.

 

[MrK6]

The Rad dumps warm air out, the reference cards blew HOT air. The difference is the Rad water temps rarely get above 45C, or about 15C over ambient for the 120mm rad and only 10C over ambient for the 240mm rad. It is just as effective as full watercooling for the core, but slightly worse for the VRM, but still very good.

Only if you were planning on building a bottom-rung full watercooling setup in the first place. The cooling capacities of all-in-one kits don't come close to a decent custom setup.

 

[Smartazz]

Only if you were planning on building a bottom-rung full watercooling setup in the first place. The cooling capacities of all-in-one kits don't come close to a decent custom setup.

What kind of performance difference does high end water buy you?

 

[Silverforce11]

Only if you were planning on building a bottom-rung full watercooling setup in the first place. The cooling capacities of all-in-one kits don't come close to a decent custom setup.

For the core, 10C over ambient is good. But VRM is not as good, but still much better than even reference designs (which are better than most custom cards).

 

[IEC]

I'm tempted to try this out with my Swiftech H220... could probably add another 240mm or 360mm radiator to the loop and use a 92mm fan on VRMs and get most of the way to a full custom loop.

 

[Silverforce11]

I originally was going to do it with a Swiftech due to its muscular pump for an AIO, then add extra rads and a GPU-only block for the 2nd card and/or cpu... but there was a huge end of year sale for AIO coolers over here, Thermaltake pro for $30 or extreme for $40 just make more sense.