Cooling GPUs Graphics Reviews Watercooling

Overclocked and boiled: AMD Radeon RX Vega64 water-cooled

Exactly this question we answer today and - without spoiling further - also show that even with an all-in-one compact cooling over 400 watts of waste heat, you can still master it acceptable if you only use a more functional radiator... Introduction AMD believes it can easily get over the summer day with the small 120mm radiator of its AiO (Vega Liquid). That you can then then have water temperatures of approx. 60°C (or more) to stay at least reasonably quiet,... Power consumption and clock rates of the three power modes Before we overclock, we want to contrast the three predetermined modes for performance. From left to right we see the Power Save mode with 212.8 watts, the Balanced Mo... Summary Even after the Chemnitz water games, no euphoria has set in, because the card can't really inspire even when overclocking. Of course, one could also argue that the Power Save Mode is much more moderate ...

Introduction

AMD believes it can easily get over the summer day with the small 120mm radiator of its AiO (Vega Liquid). That you can then then have water temperatures of approx. 60°C (or more) to stay at least reasonably quiet, you can see how you like. But then you certainly hardly have much thermal room for manoeuvre. We will therefore first test what can be achieved with this minimal version and various improvements such as a second fan or a larger radiator.

Our readings do not include the helping backplate of our cooling system, because we had to remove them for the IR images. The difference, if you believe our temporarily plugged-in sensors, is up to 4 Kelvin, which you would be even lower on average for the voltage converters and up to 15 Kelvin for the doubler chips in the maximum OC. We have fixed the fans to 1300 rpm to avoid fluctuations in the measured values from the outset.

120 radiator and one fan (push), Turbo Mode

First, we test a smaller radiator with only one fan and choose the turbo mode with approx. 316 Watt load in the test scene. The result is just acceptable, but if we lower the speeds to 1000 rpm and below, we quickly break the 60°C mark upwards. Cool AND quiet definitely doesn't work here.

The HBM2 memory is unclocked approx. 4 to 5 Kelvin hotter (see curve), on just under 1 GHz then overclocks by up to 8 Kelvin.

The Turbo Mode allows clock peaks up to 1630 MHz, but then brakes again and again up to 1401 MHz. This hiccups are symptomatic of the attempted adherence to the power limit over time. This results in an average clock of approx. 1526 MHz over the entire runtime of 30 minutes.

120 radiator and two fans (push-pull), Turbo Mode

Now we simply pack a second fan to the other side and let it act sucking for support with the same speed. Temperatures drop slightly as expected, but it also gets much louder.

After all, we now make it below the 50°C mark for the GPU with the same power consumption of 316 watts. The HBM2 also gets correspondingly cooler.

Unfortunately, this has almost no influence on the clock rate. We now measure 1528 MHz on average over the 30 minutes, which is almost still in the range of measurement tolerances.

240 radiator and two fans (push), Turbo Mode

Now we simply mount a 240 radiator via quick release and use the same fans at the same speeds. More cooling surface now also brings significantly more cooling performance

The GPU now stays permanently below 42°C, which is certainly a decent performance for AiO cooling in the measured power shots. At 45°C, the HBM2 is also a cooling class in itself.

The average clock now rises to 1535 MHz without us changing the settings. With this you can live commod and it certainly leaves room for good overclocking results in the following. Should at least.

Intermediate conclusion

Boost's clock gain is still significantly lower than current GeForce cards, with falling GPU temperatures. A counter-test with chiller and constant 20°C water temperature did not bring any further improvements below the 40°C mark.

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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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