Aircooling Cooling GPUs Practice Reviews

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 FE freezed – with Pad Mod it gets much cooler

Oops, I did it again… Okay, I’m not blonde and I don’t jump around the universe like a ball lightning on ecstasy, but sometimes you wonder what’s being packed together in the individual factories. Good for those who have enough pad reserves. Shall we try again? Which means that the card literally screams for it. But let’s first take a small stocktaking and look at the IR measurement and the image of the backplate with the mounted Foxconn pad:

 

In order to understand where the hotspots are really located and where the waste heat is actually generated, one must of course also analyse the heat flow. This is done before the start of the heating process until the card is completely warmed up. I once created a super projection that projects the IR image of the backside in the phase of heating horizontally mirrored on the front side and then marks the real thermal hotspots in Yellow. The red frame shows the area that Foxconn has padded:

The manufacturer places the pad under the range of four (out of 8) coils, which is quite inefficient and actually completely unnecessary. You can also see very clearly that the ninth, single phase is located directly next to one of the memory modules, which seems to be borderline per se. I also don’t really understand why the other, unused possibility of positioning for the omitted tenth phase was not used.

It is really commendable that the RAM has been rotated by 90° and arranged in a way that the current-carrying tracks between voltage converters and GPU sockets do not run under memory modules as in Turing. But it is really questionable whether this advantage can be cancelled out by the rarely stupid positioning of the ninth phase. But it is the occasion to (once again) actively make improvements here.

The hot card feels good – after scissors, pad and alcohol

The backplate has been provided with a rather nasty adhesive foil on the inside in large areas. But this not only insulates electrically, but also thermally, because the stuff is quite thick. Foxconn only put the pad on the board but did not cut out the foil, which also shows that somebody must have noticed after the first installation that it would be better to make some improvements. Ok, with very manageable results, but at least it shows that you might have noticed something.

But if you do, then you do it right and not only put some pad somewhere in good faith and full of trust in God. The film is first cut out with a ruler and a cutter knife and then the strip is removed if possible so that the adhesive layer remains on the film. Making it hot is rather counterproductive here; on the contrary, I had even had the plate in the refrigerator before. Should some glue stick to the backplate (which is always the case), only isopropanol, a cloth and a lot of stamina will help. So without alcohol you can hardly reach your goal.

The next picture shows again the measured hotspots (yellow), the Nvidia pad (red) and the cut out areas of the foil. And if you throw your 2 cents into the ring and think it is only a plastic plate, try to keep your eyes on the boreholes to loosen them up. ABS injection moulding looks different and cannot be coated like this.  All set? Then after the compulsory routine comes the freestyle!

Again I use my beloved crumb pads, here from the family bulk pack. But all ultra-soft 3 mm pads are also possible. The main thing is that they get away when the backplate comes. Cut it out, lay it on the exposed areas and the Pad-Mod is ready.

When screwing the backplate together, it presses the soft pads even further apart and also together. Contact and breathe deeply satisfied!

For the examination I used not only the IR camera but also normal thermal sensors, which were placed congruently at the neuralgic places. This is even possible with a screwed on backplate, if you simply remove some material at a not visible place in the recess for the air outlet. And yes, it’s really metal! Hard like… no, not quite that.

Final measurement and an aha-experience

The result is impressive! For comparison I have also added the IR measurement values (grey). Violet is the sensor value without mod (but with mounted backplate), the lighter bar shows the temperatures after the mod. 5 degrees below the memory module, 6 degrees with the ninth VRM and 5 degrees with the other voltage converters. To achieve this, the entire backplate becomes up to 4 degrees hotter. This can be felt even without sensors.

 

Ergo it is a nice benefit, because two correctly placed pads can bring. The original pad could be reused as a Swabian option also for the single VRM, only for the VRM block you should plan a new purchase. The backplate is not protected with seals, so that it can be screwed on and off without any risk. But Torx 8 is a condition. Operation successful Patient freezes. That’s the way to do it 🙂

Danke für die Spende



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About the author

Igor Wallossek

Editor-in-chief and name-giver of igor'sLAB as the content successor of Tom's Hardware Germany, whose license was returned in June 2019 in order to better meet the qualitative demands of web content and challenges of new media such as YouTube with its own channel.

Computer nerd since 1983, audio freak since 1979 and pretty much open to anything with a plug or battery for over 50 years.

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