- Feb 19, 2009
- 10,457
- 10
- 76
My work rig has been mining 24/7 for nearly a month now, and its extremely noisy with the reference cooling. It's woefully inadequate and requires 70-80% fan speed in crossfire/closed case to keep them from throttling. For games they are fine at 55% fan speed but mining loads them a lot more as people would know by now.
There's only a few options to cool them well:
1. Full waterblock/loop setup. Would cost me around $600 all up.
2. Aftermarket open air coolers, ie. Artic Cooling, Gelid etc. These are fine for single cards, but no go for crossfire.
3. Ghetto modding with AIO coolers. Try to get the benefits of water cooling for cheap. I managed to buy a few new Thermaltake Pro/Extreme 2 for $40 each during a sale recently.
I wanted to get two NZXT G10 mounts, but they are all out of stock, with the closest Australian shipping in Feb 2014. Tired of waiting, I ebay some heatsinks, in particular: GELID enhancement kits, http://www.gelidsolutions.com/products/index.php?lid=1&cid=13 rev2. ~$6 each kit. Note that the heatsink screw holes do not align, as such I used zip ties to secure them and apply downward pressure.
The final results?
Naked R290 with ghetto mod
VRM Heatsink 1
VRM Heatsink 2: Zip ties once secure, is solid, the heatsink won't budge.
How to cool the VRM heatsink? Ghetto fan mod with zip ties!
80mm fan I had on hand with LED, not really good since its low 16 CFM is terrible.
Crossfire R290s, with 120mm fan on bottom card. It's a Nanoxia DS, much better, over all the tests, the VRM was ~6-8C cooler from using the 120mm compared to the 80mm fan (tested in single and CF config).
Gaming/Benchmark temps?
Reference card would hit 94C core and around 70C VRM temps in gaming/valley.
Ghetto modded core didn't get above 48C! VRM temps?
Valley Loops, closed case.
CF stock R290s, stock CPU
How about some real punishing load? Mining @ 826 kHa/s:
Single R290 Temp core mining (open case)
Single R290 Temp VRM mining (open case)
Not too bad, note that this is reading the temps from the 80mm fan card.
Final run, overnight mining, closed case with side panel intake, core reached 55/58C:
Noise level? Just a gentle fan hum from the thermaltake fans, its the loudest component in the rig, much less noisy than even "quiet mode" 40% fan speed on the R290.
All up, CPU and both GPU watercooled, total price ~$160.
There's only a few options to cool them well:
1. Full waterblock/loop setup. Would cost me around $600 all up.
2. Aftermarket open air coolers, ie. Artic Cooling, Gelid etc. These are fine for single cards, but no go for crossfire.
3. Ghetto modding with AIO coolers. Try to get the benefits of water cooling for cheap. I managed to buy a few new Thermaltake Pro/Extreme 2 for $40 each during a sale recently.
I wanted to get two NZXT G10 mounts, but they are all out of stock, with the closest Australian shipping in Feb 2014. Tired of waiting, I ebay some heatsinks, in particular: GELID enhancement kits, http://www.gelidsolutions.com/products/index.php?lid=1&cid=13 rev2. ~$6 each kit. Note that the heatsink screw holes do not align, as such I used zip ties to secure them and apply downward pressure.
The final results?
Naked R290 with ghetto mod
VRM Heatsink 1
VRM Heatsink 2: Zip ties once secure, is solid, the heatsink won't budge.
How to cool the VRM heatsink? Ghetto fan mod with zip ties!
80mm fan I had on hand with LED, not really good since its low 16 CFM is terrible.
Crossfire R290s, with 120mm fan on bottom card. It's a Nanoxia DS, much better, over all the tests, the VRM was ~6-8C cooler from using the 120mm compared to the 80mm fan (tested in single and CF config).
Gaming/Benchmark temps?
Reference card would hit 94C core and around 70C VRM temps in gaming/valley.
Ghetto modded core didn't get above 48C! VRM temps?
Valley Loops, closed case.
CF stock R290s, stock CPU
How about some real punishing load? Mining @ 826 kHa/s:
Single R290 Temp core mining (open case)
Single R290 Temp VRM mining (open case)
Not too bad, note that this is reading the temps from the 80mm fan card.
Final run, overnight mining, closed case with side panel intake, core reached 55/58C:
Noise level? Just a gentle fan hum from the thermaltake fans, its the loudest component in the rig, much less noisy than even "quiet mode" 40% fan speed on the R290.
All up, CPU and both GPU watercooled, total price ~$160.
Last edited: