GPU cooling upgrade

4b33r · August 3

I have a 6600xt that I have overclocked, under high load it becomes power limited even at +15% power limit and clocks down.
I cannot increase the power limit any higher as the GPU hotspot temp reaches 99C in games and I don't want it to go any higher.
It was even worse before, the difference between GPU temp and Hotspot temp was 60 and 110. This was due to poor mounting pressure as MSI's tolerances for the cooler are garbage. I filed down the main four screw posts to increase the mounting pressure and now it's much better. I also took off the plastic blanket called the backplate.

I know it can perform a lot better, if only I could push more current through it.
To do this I want to mount a ducted fan to blow air on the back of the card. Maybe a 50mm EDF for RC aircraft.

I want to know if this would significantly affect the core temperatures of the card and will it allow me to give it more power.

Jurrunio · August 3

I can't tell how much that will help with the core temps, but blowing on the back helps with core, power delivery and memory temperatures so it's always a beneficial upgrade.

WereCat · August 3

Better cooling always helps. Getting something like PTM7950 and doing the washer mod will probably give you the better results if you're up for the task.

You can use MPT (More Power Tools) to undervolt and downclock SOC which can give you around 10W-15W headroom to put back into the core. It also allows you to change the power limits, current limits, etc... just be careful with what you tweak as there are no protections against oopsies.

You will have to use GPU-Z to extract the BIOS file (and make a backup) and import it into MPT. Changes apply after PC restart. All changes will disappear after driver update or reinstall so you will have to also backup your MPT configs once you find good values that work for you.

Also if you run into some weir issues with MPT that will put your card into a failsafe mode just rever the settings back and restart or in the worst case reinstall drivers.

You can combine MPT settings with Adrenaline SW settings. The core Voltage in Adrenaline especially works way differently than what you set in MPT so you can tweak both (MPT actually limits the max voltage the card can achieve unlike Adrenaline which affects voltage/frequency curve).

4b33r · August 4

20 hours ago, WereCat said:

Better cooling always helps. Getting something like PTM7950 and doing the washer mod will probably give you the better results if you're up for the task.

I have replaced the thermal paste with thermal grizzly kryonaut. The washer mod achieves the same thing as filing down the posts, more mounting pressure.

20 hours ago, WereCat said:

You can use MPT (More Power Tools) to undervolt and downclock SOC which can give you around 10W-15W headroom to put back into the core. It also allows you to change the power limits, current limits, etc... just be careful with what you tweak as there are no protections against oopsies.

The SOC voltage limit is set as 1050mv by default but the max I've achieved is 0.934mv, also the max SOC power draw is only 9.725w so lowering it further would only give me a couple of watts at most.

20 hours ago, WereCat said:

You can combine MPT settings with Adrenaline SW settings. The core Voltage in Adrenaline especially works way differently than what you set in MPT so you can tweak both (MPT actually limits the max voltage the card can achieve unlike Adrenaline which affects voltage/frequency curve).

My max core voltage is 1.058v which is what I have set in Adrenaline, it's the lowest voltage that the card is stable at a clock speed of 2637mhz.