Kraken G10 VRM

[SebastianThorn]

So, I've had my Kraken for about two weeks now, and I'm really happy with it. Just one thing, I'm a little worried about the Vrm temps.. I've searched alot on the Internet, and nearly everyone say something different, which gives me mixed feelings. My Pc has never crashed since I got it, but on the other hand, I have never played any game for more than 4 hours in a row. I'm not planning to overclock, and I don't care about bench scores either. I just want to know if the fan that came with it is enough to cool the vrm? Or do I need to buy a heatsink? Thanks in advance.

 

780Ti

H75 with Kraken G10

[Enderman]

Run a stress test and monitor your VRM temps see how hot they get.

[Guest]

If you aren't overclocking, you won't need the VRM heatsinks. The G10 does cool them, just not as well as a reference cooler. If you don't plan on overclocking, the fan on the G10 will be enough. If you do overclock though, I would pick up some of these:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835708009&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10440897&PID=3891137&SID=rewrite

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835708011&cm_re=Enzotech-_-35-708-011-_-Product

[LemonSpice]

So, I've had my Kraken for about two weeks now, and I'm really happy with it. Just one thing, I'm a little worried about the Vrm temps.. I've searched alot on the Internet, and nearly everyone say something different, which gives me mixed feelings. My Pc has never crashed since I got it, but on the other hand, I have never played any game for more than 4 hours in a row. I'm not planning to overclock, and I don't care about bench scores either. I just want to know if the fan that came with it is enough to cool the vrm? Or do I need to buy a heatsink? Thanks in advance.

 

780Ti

H75 with Kraken G10

you dont need a heatsink but it is bettter

[Faceman]

So, I've had my Kraken for about two weeks now, and I'm really happy with it. Just one thing, I'm a little worried about the Vrm temps.. I've searched alot on the Internet, and nearly everyone say something different, which gives me mixed feelings. My Pc has never crashed since I got it, but on the other hand, I have never played any game for more than 4 hours in a row. I'm not planning to overclock, and I don't care about bench scores either. I just want to know if the fan that came with it is enough to cool the vrm? Or do I need to buy a heatsink? Thanks in advance.

 

780Ti

H75 with Kraken G10

The Kraken G10 gets a lot of bad publicity because people claim that it has insufficient Voltage Regulation Module(VRM) and Video Card RAM(VRAM) Cooling.  For starters, the VRAM never gets hot enough to be worried about, so lets focus on the VRMs.  Does the GPU need additional heat sinks for the VRAM and VRMs?  In short, no.

 

   The whole "insufficient VRAM/VRM cooling" began with a review of the G10 by Puget Systems.  This review is probably the most critical review of the G10 out there.  While it makes an interesting point, I have to explain its critical flaw to a certain extend.  To begin, their Unigine temperature test, which is most closely related to video game performance, their measured temperatures are perfectly fine, they are even lower with the G10 than with the  stock heat sink for both the GTX Titan and Reference R9 290X(Notorious for high heat).  The only time when we see the temperatures higher with the G10 than the stock heat sink are when they run Kombustor.

 

     Kombustor/Furmark is a program that should NEVER be run.  It puts unnecessary load on the GPU that is completely unrealistic.  It is a card killer.  It is uncommon, but happens enough that it needs to be mentioned.  Kombustor can and will brick your card.  It happened to me earlier this year, and it happens to many others.  I like Tiny Tom Logan's analogy of this stress test.  "It is like the Navy Seals, it is incredibly rigorous and has a low pass rate."

     I like to give my components 2 weeks of break in time before overclocking to make sure everything is working properly.  This is what I did with my brand new, MSi GTX 770 Lightning.  I had used the card for 2 weeks, no problems, everything going fine.  As you know with a Lightning, this is a card built specifically for overclocking.  Without knowing what I know now, I ran Kombustor at stock settings to get a baseline for my overclocks.  It took all of 3 minutes running Kombustor on a brand new, factory settings card for it to die.  I am not the only one this has happened to, so I always tell my story whenever I get a chance because Kombustor is a dangerous program, and should not be used.  If you want to run some benchmarks for your GPU, use Unigine, 3DMark, and In-game benchmark utilities.  Not Furmark/Kombustor.

 

     Back to the Puget review.  They ran Kombustor during their test, which as a reviewer, they should do in order to review the G10 in all scenarios to give the reader an idea of what to expect.  My problem with the review and the negative perception it has created is that it is an unrealistic scenario, one which I would not recommend anyone do at home, and you are unlikely to encounter that type of load during regular use.  I'm not aware of any real world applications where your GPU would be put under that much stress.  So lets look at the part of the review that pertains to real world scenarios, their Unigine portion of the test.  The VRM temperatures are perfectly fine, even lower with the G10 than the stock heat sink.  This is with "naked" cards.  A lot of non-reference cards which a lot of people own come with mid-plates that passively cool the VRAM and VRMs. 

 

     To give you an idea of what VRM temperatures are like for those of us at home, we asked members of the OCN G10 Owner's Club, who have cards that can monitor the VRM temperatures to run some tests.  Simple before and after tests. There are two reviews that I will point to. The Asus DCUII GTX 780Ti, Post #1147 and a reference R9 290 Post #1486 & Post #1500

   You will see that the guy with the Asus GTX 780Ti was getting DCUII temperatures of 86C on the Core and 104C on the VRMs, his card was overclocked.  You can look at the link to see specifics of his OC, nothing major, very average.  Once he did the G10 modification without extra heat sinks, he was able to further overclock his card, and temperatures dropped to 49C on the Core, and 81C on the VRMs.  This tells us two things.  #1, the VRMs can withstand a lot of heat, #2 the G10's Fan does an excellent job of cooling the VRMs on its own. 

     There was another test done with an R9 290.  They went as far as to do a before and after test with heat sinks on their G10. that they went from something like 90C on the core with the reference cooler all the way down to 55C with G10 + H55. VRMs went from 110C down to 75C.  Most importantly, when they added heat sinks the VRM temperatures dropped from 75C to 60C.  So adding heat sinks does help out if you are concerned about VRM temperatures. This was with a reference R9 290, so it was a naked card without mid-plate to passively help cool VRAM and VRMs.  These are just two examples, if you read through that thread, there are many more.

      In summation,VRM temperatures are not a concern as long as you don't run a dangerous program like Kombustor/Furmark.  For awhile now people have been thinking that its a hardware problem, when in reality, its a software problem.  You will be perfectly fine buying just a Kraken G10 + AIO of your choice without extra heat sinks.  Any extras you decide to buy are optional.  Here is a list of my optional extras you might want to buy to go along with your G10:

 

1 Pack of Cosmos mini Aluminum VGA Heatsinks(20pc) - $6 You can place these on your VRMs for peace of mind if you like.  It is what I did, even with a card that has a mid-plate.  My VRMs have never exceeded 54C according to my NZXT Sentry 3 Fan Controller.

 

1 Pack of Sekisui Double-Sided Adhesive Thermal Heatsink Tape(2pc) - $3 The heat sinks come with thermal tape pre-applied, but it is not very good quality and people report them falling off.  Buy this high end thermal tape to get better heat transfer, and to make sure your heat sinks stay on.  You will have to remove the old pre-applied tape before using the good tape.

 

Aftermarket Thermal Compound, it comes with the AIO Cooler, but if you want to buy some performance stuff to shave off an additional 1-4C buy your own.  Can also be used on your CPU.  It is also nice to have just in case you need to remount anything.  The Cooler Master Seidon 240M actually comes with a tube that you can apply yourself, so you will have some extra.  This TIM is good, but definitely not "performance" stuff.  I recommend Gelid GC-Extreme - $11

 

 VGA to PWM Fan Adapter - $5  This Fan Adapter is very nice because it allows you to plug the G10's 92mm fan directly into the GPU instead of into the valuable motherboard fan headers.  Once plugged into the video card, you can control the fan speed in MSI Afterburner.  Set it to a constant speed, not a fan curve.  The reason being is that the temperature is derived from the core.  The fan is for the VRMs.  Set it to a constant value of close to 100%.

 

Cooler Master Blade Master 120mm PWM Fan - $12  A 2nd 120mm fan for your H55 will go a long way in cooling performance, and noise.  Having two fans allows you to run them at lower speeds, keeping the noise down, while maintaining the same awesomely low temperatures as a single fan at high speed, or crank them both up for even better performance.

 

If you're really concerned and want to air on the side of caution, pick up some tiny aluminum heatsinks and Sekisui Double Sided Thermal Tape, but it is purely precautionary and you will be just fine without it.

[Aniallation]

-snip-

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/247327-best-way-to-cool-r9-290x/

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/241381-corsair-h55-or-corsair-h60-r9-290-or-gtx-780/

 

[Faceman]

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/247327-best-way-to-cool-r9-290x/

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/241381-corsair-h55-or-corsair-h60-r9-290-or-gtx-780/

 

 

If I can answer someone's question that I have already answered before in the best and most concise way possible, I am going to do just that.

[Mick Naughty]

Depening on how you attach heat sinks to the vram, I would do it specially if you consider keeping the cooler when it comes time to upgrade the card. Can't hurt it. I put them on the back of my cards. No reason only the vram under the ref cooler should get all the attention.

[SebastianThorn]

never gets hot enough to be worried about, so lets focus on the

Hey, thanks for the long reply. It really helped me, I was just really worried because It's an expensive card and I can't afford to kill it . that really helped me, but I will look into some of the extra things aswell. And what's the point with Kombustor/Furmark if they're so extreme? Just to brag about temps? And the things to go with the Kraken, do you know if they are located in Europe? I live in Sweden, so it would be rather expensive to ship it here from ex) US. Yeah, I may overclock in the future, but I will be sure to pick up all the good extra things then. And sorry for this messy reply, but I'm on my phone, so it's pretty difficult.

[Faceman]

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/247327-best-way-to-cool-r9-290x/

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/241381-corsair-h55-or-corsair-h60-r9-290-or-gtx-780/

 :

Well would you look at that. I solved it for yet another person. Now, it would be great if you started helping people on this forum instead of lying about CPU performance, fabricating prices, and complaining about those that actually help others. That would really be great.

[SebastianThorn]

Well would you look at that. I solved it for yet another person. Now, it would be great if you started helping people on this forum instead of lying about CPU performance, fabricating prices, and complaining about those that actually help others. That would really be great.

Yeah, it really helped me. Most people on this forum are great, and really helpful! With Unity's realease tomorrow, my Pc will be running for some hours.

[Faceman]

never gets hot enough to be worried about, so lets focus on the

Hey, thanks for the long reply. It really helped me, I was just really worried because It's an expensive card and I can't afford to kill it . that really helped me, but I will look into some of the extra things aswell. And what's the point with Kombustor/Furmark if they're so extreme? Just to brag about temps? And the things to go with the Kraken, do you know if they are located in Europe? I live in Sweden, so it would be rather expensive to ship it here from ex) US. Yeah, I may overclock in the future, but I will be sure to pick up all the good extra things then. And sorry for this messy reply, but I'm on my phone, so it's pretty difficult.

Glad I could help you out. No worries, I type on my phone and kindle all the time.

Furmark is just the built in stress testing application that comes with many GPUs. It's a stress test, but it's a very dangerous one. Some people have no problems running it, but others do, and the ones that do, it goes very wrong for them, including breaking their expensive cards. Just air on the side of caution and use Unigine, it is not as demanding a stress test, and it still works just fine to find instability with Overclocks, but without damaging your GPU.

I'm not sure about finding those products in Sweden or the EU. Maybe a website like Frozencpu.com can ship to you? Or maybe eBay? As you saw from one of the links, the guy was using an Asus 780Ti and it was overclocked to the max 1.212v. Even then VRM temps didn't exceed 84C, which is much better than the 104C he was getting with a lower overclock and the stock heatsink.

[Briggsy]

although I have vrm heatsinks on both of my G10-cooled 290's, I'm not sure its absolutely necessary, but with the heatsink my VRM's never get hotter than the core's, and the core's usually run at load in the low to high 50's, @ 1100Mhz. I still would recommend VRM heatsinks because the cooler the VRM's are, the better they regulate voltage.

 

as for VRam, the area that usually is a concern is the solder holding the Ram chips in place. The Ram itself won't get hot enough to melt the solder, but the weight of a copper heatsink hanging from a ram chip would add additional weight and risk if the solder got hot enough. usually the memory controller will die before the memory, otherwise, the ram was faulty to begin with.