DIY Waterblock for the ASUS rtx3070 TURBO card

[MartinLJN]

I am in the process of mounting a Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite 120 on my ASUS rtx3070 TURBO card. I have made mounting brackets on my 3D printer and it looks fine. However, I need to mount a copper plate between gpu/ram and aio. The copper plate is on its way, and when I have it I will test how it works. This is how far I have come so far. The copper plate should be coming soon. All mounting screws etc. is from the Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite 120. The Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite 240 should also fit.

 

[jaslion]

Aren't you forgetting to cool those chunks on the left of the pump?

 

Looks good but get some extremely high end thermal paste and maybe even lap the plates on the cooler and copper plate you are getting to make sure contact is as good as it gets.

 

Also a masterliquid ml 120 is NOT going to cut it thrust me on that that card puts out WELL above what that poor small aio can handle. That aio can barely even cool above mid range cpu's let alone a gpu like that.

[TheEpicDuck]

Seems cool! Cant you just remove the midplate? That way you dont need the copper plate.

[MartinLJN]

24 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Aren't you forgetting to cool those chunks on the left of the pump?

 

Looks good but get some extremely high end thermal paste and maybe even lap the plates on the cooler and copper plate you are getting to make sure contact is as good as it gets.

 

Also a masterliquid ml 120 is NOT going to cut it thrust me on that that card puts out WELL above what that poor small aio can handle. That aio can barely even cool above mid range cpu's let alone a gpu like that.

Those chunks sitting on the left have no cooling on the standard card, other than the air moving over. So I do not know if it is necessary? I will probably put a small fan on the card to cool components on the PCB, and maybe I will keep the original fan and adjust the original cover to fit the card again.

 

I have a masterliquid ml 240 that cools my CPU Ryzen 5 3600, do you think it would be better to swap them around?

[MartinLJN]

20 hours ago, TheEpicDuck said:

Seems cool! Cant you just remove the midplate? That way you dont need the copper plate.

The midplate acts as a heat sink for some of the components. The original cooler/Heat sink has contact for both the ram and the processor. The new aio will not be able to cover that, so therefore I think a copper plate is a good idea.

[MartinLJN]

Test installation of radiators in PC case. The masterliquid ml240 can just reach the GPU  

[fonzz1e]

err... u might wanna monitor the vrm & vram temps when u stress test the gpu

[MartinLJN]

9 hours ago, fonzz1e said:

err... u might wanna monitor the vrm & vram temps when u stress test the gpu

The project is not finished and the mounting in the case was only to test the masterliquid ml240 could reach the GPU  The Vram temperature should be under control as the copper shim covers them and the copper shim is cooled by aio. The mosfet in the vrm is cooled by midplate, so i hope is okay. But of course I have to monitor and test it, to see if it works as it should.

 

 

[MartinLJN]

I made the first part of the new cover, this is just a test print to see if it fit. On the second part, a fan is mounted in some way. This should help with the temperature of the components on the PCB. 

 

My package with the copper plate has disappeared during transport. Now I have to wait even longer

 

 

[For Science!]

2 hours ago, MartinLJN said:

I made the first part of the new cover, this is just a test print to see if it fit. On the second part, a fan is mounted in some way. This should help with the temperature of the components on the PCB. 

 

My package with the copper plate has disappeared during transport. Now I have to wait even longer

 

Are you using PLA? generally concerned about it warping or even fusing to the PCB over time.

[MartinLJN]

4 hours ago, For Science! said:

Are you using PLA? generally concerned about it warping or even fusing to the PCB over time.

You may be right, I have to test it. Do you think ABS or PETG is better? 

[For Science!]

3 hours ago, MartinLJN said:

You may be right, I have to test it. Do you think ABS or PETG is better? 

Maybe ASA? easier to print than ABS but more sturdy.

[MartinLJN]

On 9/9/2021 at 11:18 PM, For Science! said:

Maybe ASA? easier to print than ABS but more sturdy.

Okay thanks for the info. I have never tried printing with ASA but it sounds good. I will give it a try 

 

FYI: I used PETG and it seems to work fine.

[MartinLJN]

The project has progressed a bit. The 3d printed cover is finished printed and fits nicely. Then it just needs to be painted.

[Demonic Donut]

You should be fine if everything is covered with a basic heatsink of some kind and has direct airflow.

 

Did you do before testing? Including clock speeds and benchmarks?

 

I recommend liquid metal for the GPU die, I used it on mine when I modified it and it works extremely well. Just buy some conformal coating as well for the surrounding area.

[MartinLJN]

I have tested the card. The result is the same as in this article. https://www.digitalcitizen.life/asus-turbo-geforce-rtx-3070-review/  As they also write, the cooler works fine, and keeps the card at 66 degrees. But what they forget to write is that the card is very noisy.

So my goal is to make the card quiet, and overclock it a bit. I will not use liquid metal on this card even though it works well.

[MartinLJN]

Soldering fan cables so they can fit on GPU mini fan connector. The original fan was at 12v 2.2 A and the 3 new ones are at 12v 1.02A (0.16A + 0.16A + 0.7A) so that should be okay

[MartinLJN]

The copper plate is mounted with Noctua NT-H1 paste. I found a Unigine Haven benchmark which I ran on the original card and there I got a score of 8011 / 318.0 FPS / around 66 GPU temp. The new score is 8124 / 322.5 FPS / 57 GPU temp. The biggest difference is the noise level, which has gotten much better. However, I would say it can get even better, the 80mm fan I have used is still making too much noise, so I will mount a be quiet! Pure Wings 2 80 mm which I get today and I also order a tube Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut liquid metal

The copper plate is a bit raw, so it also needs to be sanded a bit. I will probably also test a bit with the mounting pressure. Hot spot have a delta of about 15 degrees. 

[MartinLJN]

The new 80mm fan is fitted and it helped a lot with the noise. The copper plate has been sanded flat on both sides. Liquid metal has been applied between the GPU and the copper plate, and between the copper plate and the AIO. All cables from the graphics card fit nicely with the hole in the case backplate .

 

My temperature in the room is 22 degrees and the GPU has a temperature of 28 degrees in idle, but the fans are running at 30% which unfortunately is what the graphics card will at least run the fans. During stress tests, the temperature rises to 60 degrees, with the fans running at 30%, and a maximum temperature of 49 degrees with the fans running at 100%. Hot spot temperature have a delta of only 10 degrees

The card runs with a GPU Clock of 2010 MHz and a memory Clock of 2025 MHz. I can not run anymore as the card can not supply more power.

 

I'm happy with the result. The graphics card run quiet and cold

[MartinLJN]

New overclok  still happy with the temperature of max 55 degrees at 30% fan speed.

[MartinLJN]

Update: I have moved the radiator and fan to the CPU to blow out of the case. The fan on the GPU and the fan on the GPU radiator now get power from the motherboard so I better can control the speed, and I can now run the fan at 0% in idle. I could not do this before as the minimum speed was 30% in GPU BIOS.

[MartinLJN]

CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processer 3901 MHz  
RAM - 16 GB

GPU - Asus GeForce RTX 3070 Lite Hash Rate 8 GB (GA104) (DIY Waterblock) 

Average FPS - 94.19
Score - 12592

https://benchmark.unigine.com/results/rid_06159c45b49c4774b9594100d7957193

 

[KuruminTokisaki]

Love what you did with your card! I had similar idea, but was scared to disassemble the card :D . Without knowing how card is assembled, my idea was to make custom mid plate made out of copper or brass with soldered heatsinks on plate, over VRMS and RAMS. For mounting cooler itself stand off nuts would be soldered so that generic CPU water block would fit.

 

Now that you showed how card looks like disassembled, I immediately discarded my ridiculous, overcomplicated idea :D. Could you share your 3D print design? I would like to do same modification to my card, since it can become extremely loud. Right now I'm reducing load on GPU so it can be quiet :(. 

[MartinLJN]

On 10/17/2021 at 6:15 PM, KuruminTokisaki said:

Love what you did with your card! I had similar idea, but was scared to disassemble the card  . Without knowing how card is assembled, my idea was to make custom mid plate made out of copper or brass with soldered heatsinks on plate, over VRMS and RAMS. For mounting cooler itself stand off nuts would be soldered so that generic CPU water block would fit.

 

Now that you showed how card looks like disassembled, I immediately discarded my ridiculous, overcomplicated idea :D. Could you share your 3D print design? I would like to do same modification to my card, since it can become extremely loud. Right now I'm reducing load on GPU so it can be quiet :(. 

I will upload the files later today

[Amz23]

On 10/25/2021 at 5:31 AM, MartinLJN said:

I will upload the files later today

Hey dude, I've been pondering the same general idea about my 3060 Ti since it doesn't exist a waterblock for it and it get's hotter than I'm comfortable with... care if I message you to exchange some ideas? Thanks