Should I return my Arctic Accelero Xtreme III? (Card is EVGA 980 Ti FTW)

[crystal6tak]

Hey all, I have an EVGA 980 Ti FTW ACX 2.0.

 

I got an Artic Accelero Xtreme III. I was hoping to install it without having to remove the front plate and dealing with all the little heatsink and epoxy. Unfortunately, I failed, the front plate had 4 points toward the GPU die so the aluminum block of the Xtreme III couldn't make full contact with it.

 

BTW, to those that want to make this work, remove the front plate, stick all necessary heatsink, use 2.5mm spacer for the front and 3.5mm spacer at the back. Ignore the foam block on the back, the smaller connector for the LED has a clip in plastic which will be a pain in the ass to remove.

 

Anyways, so, I'm too much of a pussy to permanently have epoxy on my card and deal with all those heatsink stuff. Should I just return it?

 

Or keep it in case I'm brave enough to perform the full surgery on my 980 Ti? Or get a sander or metal cutter and shape the Xtreme III bracket to make it fit?

[Kryptyx]

Aren't those more suited for reference cards? I would return it.

[Naeaes]

Get some other method to mount the tiny heatsinks. I usually go with self-adhesive thermal pads. Way easier to remove if need be.

But I must admit, it baffles me a tiny bit, what are you expecting to achieve by replacing the ACX 2.0 cooler. Isn't it among the best in the market?

[crystal6tak]

2 minutes ago, Naeaes said:

Get some other method to mount the tiny heatsinks. I usually go with self-adhesive thermal pads. Way easier to remove if need be.

But I must admit, it baffles me a tiny bit, what are you expecting to achieve by replacing the ACX 2.0 cooler. Isn't it among the best in the market?

I wonder why everyone has that idea. I've used Asus Strix, MSI Gaming 6G, and the FTW ACX 2.0 980 Ti. The ACX 2.0 is by far the worse cooler. Has brushing sound when slowing down RPM, has pitched squeal at certain RPM, at high RPM it's a jet. The Strix seems to be the best out of all three.

 

Only good thing about the FTW card is it's high ASIC quality. I've gotten my hands on 2 Asus Strix, 2 MSI Gaming 6G, and 3 FTW cards so far. Here's the run down:

Strix: 76.3%, 72.9%

Gaming 6G: 72.5%, 72.1%

FTW: 83.8%, 82%, 83.8%

 

As to the adhesive thermal pads...that's an idea, hrm, thank you!

[crystal6tak]

10 hours ago, Naeaes said:

Get some other method to mount the tiny heatsinks. I usually go with self-adhesive thermal pads. Way easier to remove if need be.

But I must admit, it baffles me a tiny bit, what are you expecting to achieve by replacing the ACX 2.0 cooler. Isn't it among the best in the market?

Hey Naeas, have you got any recommendation for self-adhesive thermal pads for what I want to do?

[Naeaes]

27 minutes ago, crystal6tak said:

Hey Naeas, have you got any recommendation for self-adhesive thermal pads for what I want to do?

Yeah. I've worked with this stuff that I got from here but it seems they don't carry it anymore. The best I've ever seen was a roll of 3M but that particular case was not for computers. It was for a huge honking LED panel. But the basics were the same. Two flat surfaces, one of them hot. The LED panels got way hotter than any computer so I'd imagine that's why they were so adamant about their TIM.

I'd prefer the 3M but I've never seen it available in computer stores. But I'm from Finland, the wonderland of wireless Internet within stones and moss. The market for specialized consumer electronics isn't huge here.  Hopefully the availability is better where you live. The thing with those both is that they're really thin so the surfaces need to be pretty uniform. The LED guys sanded their heatsinks to a shine before installing. And the conductivity isn't in par with thermal pads per se, so you can't fill huge gaps either. Luckily a non-issue as long as there's an individual heatsink for every RAM and VRM. 

[crystal6tak]

5 hours ago, Naeaes said:

Yeah. I've worked with this stuff that I got from here but it seems they don't carry it anymore. The best I've ever seen was a roll of 3M but that particular case was not for computers. It was for a huge honking LED panel. But the basics were the same. Two flat surfaces, one of them hot. The LED panels got way hotter than any computer so I'd imagine that's why they were so adamant about their TIM.

I'd prefer the 3M but I've never seen it available in computer stores. But I'm from Finland, the wonderland of wireless Internet within stones and moss. The market for specialized consumer electronics isn't huge here.  Hopefully the availability is better where you live. The thing with those both is that they're really thin so the surfaces need to be pretty uniform. The LED guys sanded their heatsinks to a shine before installing. And the conductivity isn't in par with thermal pads per se, so you can't fill huge gaps either. Luckily a non-issue as long as there's an individual heatsink for every RAM and VRM. 

So I did a bit more research about this, learnt a new measurement, "# w/mK" supposedly measures how well a material conducts heat. That 3M tape apparantly has 0.6 w/mK. I looked and it seems like thermal pads are much higher for some reason? At highest there are 17 w/mK which seems insane as something like Arctic Silver 5 has 8.7 w/mK lol.

 

I looked around and it seems like at europe I can only get the Alphacool Eisschicht thermal pad 14 w/mK at a reasonable price. Would you happen to know if 1mm and 0.5mm have any difference if all I'm doing is sticking a heatsink on stuff? I understand normally you have two sides squished together, and the thickness has to accommodate that gap specifically. But since that doesn't apply here, will it matter if I get 0.5 or 1mm?

[Naeaes]

19 minutes ago, crystal6tak said:

-snip-

Yeah.  Our superb SI-system in all it's glory. It's Watts per Kelvin-Meter. It's the exact same thing as Watts per Centigrade-Meter, BTW.

I'm myself satisfied knowing that it's a linear scale. So if you cut the heat generation or the thickness of the pad or the difference in temperature in half, you can double one of the other measurements. Basically the higher the number, the better and the thinner the pad, the better. But for any math, you need to factor in the area and the thickness down to like micrometers.

For comparison, the thermal conductivity of water is way below 1 W/mK. If it's fine for watercooling, it'll be fine for thermal pads. But that Alphacool pad looks awesome on paper to me. Thermal conductivity nearing that of stainless steel so it's really overkill but if it works and doesn't cost an arm then why not.  

[crystal6tak]

20 hours ago, Naeaes said:

Yeah.  Our superb SI-system in all it's glory. It's Watts per Kelvin-Meter. It's the exact same thing as Watts per Centigrade-Meter, BTW.

I'm myself satisfied knowing that it's a linear scale. So if you cut the heat generation or the thickness of the pad or the difference in temperature in half, you can double one of the other measurements. Basically the higher the number, the better and the thinner the pad, the better. But for any math, you need to factor in the area and the thickness down to like micrometers.

For comparison, the thermal conductivity of water is way below 1 W/mK. If it's fine for watercooling, it'll be fine for thermal pads. But that Alphacool pad looks awesome on paper to me. Thermal conductivity nearing that of stainless steel so it's really overkill but if it works and doesn't cost an arm then why not.  

Went ahead and bought the alphacool eisschicht 14w/mk 0.5mm pads. Not cheap but wasn't absurdly expensive either. 25.84 euro/28.36 USD including shipping for two peace of 120x20mm. The 100x100mm piece had a much better value but bleh, I don't want to spend more than I have to... Let's hope this goes well. If it does, I might put up a guide on how to install the accelero xtreme iii on a 980 ti ftw as well as brief reviews for the pads. Certainly haven't found any guide for installing this cooler on the 980 Ti, nor found anyone using thermal pads to stick free heatsinks on vrm/vram...

 

Thanks for all the help!

[MinobeHoshiko]

did you write a guide?

 

I looking into getting a Artic Accelero Xtreme III installed on my EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (06G-P4-4995-KR)

 

Although, the raijintek morpheus II looks interesting. This post seems to say it attaches without removing the front cooling plate. 

[crystal6tak]

15 hours ago, MinobeHoshiko said:

did you write a guide?

 

I looking into getting a Artic Accelero Xtreme III installed on my EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (06G-P4-4995-KR)

 

Although, the raijintek morpheus II looks interesting. This post seems to say it attaches without removing the front cooling plate. 

Hi!
Here's an album with pictures and comments:

I did the install over a year ago, so I forgot the exact details, hopefully this'll still help.

I've successfully installed the accelero III on the 980 ti FTW. With a few downside however.
The front plate and back plate had to go. The front plate's 4 bump around the GPU (so the middle square) interferes with the heatsink. Unless you have a power tool and is willing to saw those bumps off (losing warranty), you'll have to use the accelero without front/back plate. The backplate screws on to the front plate, so without the front plate, back plate can't go on.

I hope this helps! If you got any more questions, feel free to ask!

[MinobeHoshiko]

8 hours ago, crystal6tak said:

Hi!
Here's an album with pictures and comments:

I did the install over a year ago, so I forgot the exact details, hopefully this'll still help.

I've successfully installed the accelero III on the 980 ti FTW. With a few downside however.
The front plate and back plate had to go. The front plate's 4 bump around the GPU (so the middle square) interferes with the heatsink. Unless you have a power tool and is willing to saw those bumps off (losing warranty), you'll have to use the accelero without front/back plate. The backplate screws on to the front plate, so without the front plate, back plate can't go on.

I hope this helps! If you got any more questions, feel free to ask!

Thanks, those image are helpful. Did your fan control work with the accelero on passive mode? This post seems to have issues.

 

Raijintek emailed me back saying the Morpheus II was revised with slightly raised heatpipe. I'm thinking this might work better with those 4 bumps you talked about and allow me to keep the face plate on. 

[crystal6tak]

15 hours ago, MinobeHoshiko said:

Thanks, those image are helpful. Did your fan control work with the accelero on passive mode? This post seems to have issues.

 

Raijintek emailed me back saying the Morpheus II was revised with slightly raised heatpipe. I'm thinking this might work better with those 4 bumps you talked about and allow me to keep the face plate on. 

Fan control worked. Put 0% speed still has the fan spinning, and max speed tops at 65%. So not much speed variation possible. 

 

If that's the case, go for the morpheus II if the cost isn't an issue! Get that with some noctua fans and you're gold. I would've went with the morpheus II if it wasn't for the cost.

[MinobeHoshiko]

On 4/5/2017 at 5:33 AM, crystal6tak said:

Fan control worked. Put 0% speed still has the fan spinning, and max speed tops at 65%. So not much speed variation possible. 

 

If that's the case, go for the morpheus II if the cost isn't an issue! Get that with some noctua fans and you're gold. I would've went with the morpheus II if it wasn't for the cost.

Got the Morpheus II and working well. Dropped my 980ti temps by 20C and near silent. 

[MinobeHoshiko]

update. I got some mini-PWM to PWM splitters and got the two 120mm fans directly connected to the GPU. It was able to control the fan speed automatically like with the stock cooler. Only down side is that at 60% fan speed, the fan actually runs at full 1850rpm. Probably, the board is thinking 100% means 3000rpm with the stock cooler fan. 

[SpriteNo5]

On 24/02/2016 at 10:53 PM, crystal6tak said:

I wonder why everyone has that idea. I've used Asus Strix, MSI Gaming 6G, and the FTW ACX 2.0 980 Ti. The ACX 2.0 is by far the worse cooler. Has brushing sound when slowing down RPM, has pitched squeal at certain RPM, at high RPM it's a jet. The Strix seems to be the best out of all three.

 

Only good thing about the FTW card is it's high ASIC quality. I've gotten my hands on 2 Asus Strix, 2 MSI Gaming 6G, and 3 FTW cards so far. Here's the run down:

Strix: 76.3%, 72.9%

Gaming 6G: 72.5%, 72.1%

FTW: 83.8%, 82%, 83.8%

 

As to the adhesive thermal pads...that's an idea, hrm, thank you!

Yup the ACX 2 really got on my nerves with that rubbing sound every time the cards spun up. Set a custom profile to have the fans spinning at 30% min. Only way I could get rid.