Liquid metal for my GTX 970 G1 Gaming? Abysmal temperatures at stock.

[Dabombinable]

Long story short, my GTX 970 G1 Gaming is idling at 40^oC, and under a full gaming load it thermal throttles hard while running its fans extremely loud, so I'm once again looking to replace the thermal compound. Would liquid metal solve the thermal problems? (Its not dust BTW)

This is what I'm looking at, it says 25% silver on the store page, and 30% or higher on the MSDS

 

https://www.jaycar.com.au/heatsink-compound-25-silver-1-5g/p/NM2013

https://www.jaycar.com.au/medias/sys_master/images/h27/h5e/8886994862110/NM2013-msdsMain.pdf

[Cyracus]

Gpus tend to have exposed leads around the chip so liquid metal is a good way to brick your gpu. Just use some good non conductive paste, the temperature difference between good thermal compound is minor. Also make sure you have good airflow to the card 

[Bcat00]

You know liquid metal isnt magic paste that will reduce temp by large margins compared to a regular one.

[Dabombinable]

11 hours ago, Cyracus said:

Gpus tend to have exposed leads around the chip so liquid metal is a good way to brick your gpu. Just use some good non conductive paste, the temperature difference between good thermal compound is minor. Also make sure you have good airflow to the card 

I've tried MX4 and while its better than the stock thermal paste, I need to go liquid metal to stop it from thermal throttling. Its got good airflow as well-the side fan on the case throws out a lot of heat, and the front fans (2x 120mm) draw in a lot of air

10 hours ago, Bcat00 said:

You know liquid metal isnt magic paste that will reduce temp by large margins compared to a regular one.

It would help my GTX 970 throttle a lot less. My particular GTX 970 is that bad that it might as well be a 290X in regards to the amount of heat it throws out (its ASIC score is the lowest I've seen on a GTX 9** series GPU, 62.1%).

[airdeano]

what ambient temperature with a 40° idle?

how many panels are you using?

 

too much chance to use metal TIM on GPU as the control of squished out TIM to short out the circuitry surrounding the processor is too great to loose the GPU.

[Dabombinable]

2 minutes ago, airdeano said:

what ambient temperature with a 40° idle?

how many panels are you using?

23^oC ambient, and the case (Antec GX500 Window) has both panels in use, with the side fan extracting, the front fans as intake, and 2x maglev bearing fans extracting from the top, with my 4790K's rad acting as an intake due to the case's poor watercooling support.

[airdeano]

looks like you need more intake than any exhaust.

front dual as intake is equating to only a single (if a filter is in use) and having dual exhaust (no i/o fan?) makes it a severe negative scenario.

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, airdeano said:

looks like you need more intake than any exhaust.

front dual as intake is equating to only a single (if a filter is in use) and having dual exhaust (no i/o fan?) makes it a severe negative scenario.

I have no other choice, as I don't have a second high static pressure fan for the radiator (meaning that it could be an exhaust), and with the side panel's fan set to act as an intake everything runs hotter due to the heat the GTX 970 is throwing out.

[airdeano]

case is large enough to allow natural exhausting. trying to balance heat performance and device performance with a negative balance will yield more heat.

air has got to get to the devices to cool them, otherwise the excess is drawn out before it can be used. for giggles take any fan SP or AF to make all fans intake (filtered or not) to see if this cures the higher temps.

[ThomasD]

Would you be willing to try running the rad as a front exhaust and the side fan as an intake?  Maybe not permanently, but as an experiment to see if the problem is air flow.

 

Because if you can feel the heat coming from the GPU then the paste is already doing g what it is supposed to do.

[gamerking]

On 11/4/2016 at 9:36 PM, Dabombinable said:

Long story short, my GTX 970 G1 Gaming is idling at 40^oC, and under a full gaming load it thermal throttles hard while running its fans extremely loud, so I'm once again looking to replace the thermal compound. Would liquid metal solve the thermal problems? (Its not dust BTW)

This is what I'm looking at, it says 25% silver on the store page, and 30% or higher on the MSDS

 

https://www.jaycar.com.au/heatsink-compound-25-silver-1-5g/p/NM2013

https://www.jaycar.com.au/medias/sys_master/images/h27/h5e/8886994862110/NM2013-msdsMain.pdf

whats the OC on your card. are you trying for 1600 core ? voltage also ? did you bios mod it ? the only time a 970 thermals is high oc or the card is not working as intended or is crap model.

[Cyracus]

11 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

with the side panel's fan set to act as an intake everything runs hotter due to the heat the GTX 970 is throwing out

does it at least get the gpu to cool off, I did a bit of testing when I got my computer, with the side fan as exhaust my gpu was being suffocated because it couldn't get air, as intake it made the rest of the system slightly hotter, as the heat was being actually being moved off the card, but the gpu got much cooler, even just removing the side fan helped because the gpu wasn't fighting for air

[Dabombinable]

6 hours ago, gamerking said:

whats the OC on your card. are you trying for 1600 core ? voltage also ? did you bios mod it ? the only time a 970 thermals is high oc or the card is not working as intended or is crap model.

I'm running it at stock-the main cause of the heat is that my GTX 970 while running at its factory overclock, is inefficient as far as GTX 970 go due to its low ASIC score (62.1%), meaning that it requires a lot more power to run at the same speed as other G1 Gaming cards. And no BIOS mods, I'd only do a BIOS mod if I had a water cooler for it. 

2 hours ago, Cyracus said:

does it at least get the gpu to cool off, I did a bit of testing when I got my computer, with the side fan as exhaust my gpu was being suffocated because it couldn't get air, as intake it made the rest of the system slightly hotter, as the heat was being actually being moved off the card, but the gpu got much cooler, even just removing the side fan helped because the gpu wasn't fighting for air

Plenty of heat gets thrown out by the side panel's fan-the top half is pretty much inline with the card so hot air is extracted almsot directly from the cooler.

[gamerking]

13 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

I'm running it at stock-the main cause of the heat is that my GTX 970 while running at its factory overclock, is inefficient as far as GTX 970 go due to its low ASIC score (62.1%), meaning that it requires a lot more power to run at the same speed as other G1 Gaming cards. And no BIOS mods, I'd only do a BIOS mod if I had a water cooler for it. 

Plenty of heat gets thrown out by the side panel's fan-the top half is pretty much inline with the card so hot air is extracted almsot directly from the cooler.

its a bad card then RMA it or return to store/site  . the ASIC ant low enough ive had 970's with lower then that with a OC and cooler . my guess you got some contact not no great on the gpu die

[Dabombinable]

3 minutes ago, gamerking said:

its a bad card then RMA it or return to store/site  . the ASIC ant low enough ive had 970's with lower then that with a OC and cooler . my guess you got some contact not no great on the gpu die

Its too late to get an RMA, I bought it a month or 2 after the GTX 970 launched, and after 4 RMA (recieving cards that were worse on each occasion) I recieved the card that I originally purchased back. And the contact seems fine-the heatsink gets extremely hot, not warm like I've had in the past with poorly mounted CPU coolers on my QX6850.

[asand1]

Swap the side fan to intake/

[Dabombinable]

4 hours ago, asand1 said:

Swap the side fan to intake/

That doesn't make it run any cooler, since the hot air isn't being removed from the vicinity of the graphics card any more.

[asand1]

1 hour ago, Dabombinable said:

That doesn't make it run any cooler, since the hot air isn't being removed from the vicinity of the graphics card any more.

It will, because cool air is being introduced.

[ThomasD]

On 11/7/2016 at 1:27 AM, Dabombinable said:

That doesn't make it run any cooler, since the hot air isn't being removed from the vicinity of the graphics card any more.

You don't want to pull hot air away, you need to force cool air towards the GPU, then the GPU fan will force that through the cooler.  

 

Let the rear exhaust fan dump the heat.

 

Four "bad" cards make me suspect the problem is not the cards.

[Dabombinable]

7 hours ago, ThomasD said:

You don't want to pull hot air away, you need to force cool air towards the GPU, then the GPU fan will force that through the cooler.  

 

Let the rear exhaust fan dump the heat.

 

Four "bad" cards make me suspect the problem is not the cards.

When a fan falls off the first since it was missing its screws-and had its screw holes stripped, another one artefacts badly, the third card refuses to run its fans below 100% and the fourth had permanent coil whine-it was the graphics cards.

[ThomasD]

2 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

When a fan falls off the first since it was missing its screws-and had its screw holes stripped, another one artefacts badly, the third card refuses to run its fans below 100% and the fourth had permanent coil whine-it was the graphics cards.

Dang, bad luck doesn't begin to describe that run.  

 

Still, the solution to pollution is dilution.  In your case the pollution is heat and dilution required running more cool air into your case.

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, ThomasD said:

Dang, bad luck doesn't begin to describe that run.  

 

Still, the solution to pollution is dilution.  In your case the pollution is heat and dilution required running more cool air into your case.

I'll try the side fan as an intake again, but in the past its only worked well with passively cooled cards (primarily the old and hot Diamond Viper V550, and recently my Voodoo 2 which are running in SLI)