AMD flooded: Radeon RX 5700 XT with an EKWB RX 5700 under water easily overclocked to 2.1 GHz | igorsLAB Review

Overclocking has become a true popular sport, but with the AMD cards of the last few years it has always been a bit difficult. So now Navi comes and suddenly everything changes. Well, almost. Provided you change the cooler. And that is exactly what I did today. With a brand new Vector Radeon RX 5700 from EK Waterblocks, some water and a few tricks everything went very fast. Of course, I also logged and measured all the steps. Because you can say a lot.

Said done, because you don't always get a prototype in your hands before everyone else is allowed to run. Whereby – at the Radeon VII I also had the first test with a real water block online. And now it's Navi's turn and I was at least as curious as the normal reader.

The EKWB Vector Radeon RX 5700 is usually nickel-plated, but the block I could use here came overnight directly from Slovenia from the manufacturer and is in fact still a kind of one-of-a-kind. In addition, there was the usual miracle bag with matching screws and the OEM Kryonaut as thermal paste.

The block is made of copper, the complete cover is made of acetate. Rgb? Misdisplay, because the cooler also works without. Logical and thank God. Who will want to spend with such an exciting topic with colorful trivialities? And since I still had the Radeon RX 5700 XT disassembled on the table, the assembly was then rather deeply relaxed.

Since Navi no longer uses a fragile interposer, but again a normal BGA, which only carries the chip, the assembly has become much easier again. In addition to the chip, we also see the RAM modules, voltage converters and coils that are thermally connected to the cooler by means of a pad. By the way, EKWB uses pads with a thickness of 0.5 mm throughout. That's the right thing to do.

What is aggravating with NAVI, however, is the thermal density. Same waste heat as the predecessors, but significantly smaller chip area. Air coolers without vapor chambers may have a bit harder. But it's perfect with water. And if you look carefully, I have assembled the thermal pads and the paste directly on the cooler, because you don't really have to scrape around with the spatula on the GPU. And droplet method is unfavorable, as the film usually gets too thick

Then simply screw the board together with the cooler – starting with the graphics card. It is sausage, whether diagonally over cross or from one side to the other. The only important thing is that you screw each screw only in small steps and alternately with the others to avoid tensions and not crack anything. Then it also works with the SoC temperature, which is often also marked as HotSpot.

At the terminal, of course, I screwed on my two hoses with the quick-release fasteners again, so that I could integrate the whole thing into the cooling system without any problems or problems. And whether with Chiller or the two radiators, the result was the same. Mainly water, the rest almost comes by itself.

 

Test system and measurement methods

The new test system and the methodology i have already described in great detail in the basic article "How we test graphics cards, as of February 2017" (English: "How We Test Graphics Cards") and therefore for the sake of simplicity now only refers to this detailed Description. So if you want to read everything again, you are welcome to do so.

If you are interested, the summary in table form quickly provides a brief overview: