Cooling on radeon5970 - thermal paste, thermal tape?

[Batouzo]

How to improve cooling inside the reference 5970 case?

The things that heat the most are the VRMs and memory (apart from obviously the cores and the middle-bridge)?

Also how to messure temperature of elements after our home made cooling upgrade? e.g. perhaps 1 VRM is frying while the just 2 temp sensors are saying all is fine?
Thermal camera? Tiny thermal resistors to each important chip (where to find such small ones?)

Foam on VRM


First, on VRMs there was some white thing, a bit like some harder foam, with a tiny material rectangular grid.
What is this?
It got a bit teared up on opening, but it looks a bit "exploded" like if it was blown a bit before (from temperature?).

Can it be replaced with a: thermal-tape on VRM + copper plate + thermal-tape to it reaches the casing?
How to choose good thermal-tape, what parameters are good enough?
Will a sandwich of tape+copper+tape+copper+tape work also? Because need to get the correct thickness/height to have it reach the casing.
There should be room to cover thoes 5 VRMs on right side (see big image - marked in violet color)
and similar with the 3 others.

Is it ok to repair the holes in foam by putting Arctic Silver 5 paste there a bit?

Good idea to cover the metal pins and path around VRM with epoxy or silicon paste or other non-conductive isolator to prevent thermal paste dropping on them?

Tape on Mem
Memory chips (green in the picture) seem to have been connected to top casing with thermal tape.. or is it normal glue-tape?

Will it conduct well after just re-attaching the same thing when closing box, or should it be fully removed,cleaned,replaced?
Anything room to improve default reference card ("Ati brand" it seems)?

Btw what is the big while chip between 2 cores? Same handing of it like the memchips?



So to sum up, our idea is so far:
copper plate from the 5 VRMs to the right as big as fits with thermal tape over/under,
and perhaps new tape to memory cores.
And re-do cores cooling with Arctic Cool 5 paste.

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[Basiley]

ac5 nice interface, also try mx2[mx3 weaker, but easier to deploy].
"in general" stock reference coolers of both 58x0 and 69x0 is WAY better than "alternatives", including expensive ones.

[Batouzo]

ac5 nice interface, also try mx2[mx3 weaker, but easier to deploy].
"in general" stock reference coolers of both 58x0 and 69x0 is WAY better than "alternatives", including expensive ones.

Thanks; So would you say that nothing can be done to improve the default setting (apart from adding water cooling)?

Watter Colling here would be probably the most expensive solution, with the plate for r5970 itself costing ~100 usd, then add pumps and all, plus it takes lots of space outside of box for the heat exchange part?

[anodyne]

I'd clean up and get new thermal pads instead of trying to patch the old ones up. I'm pretty sure I've seen kits that have all the pads you need for a reference card.

And the white chip would be the PCI-E bridge, which links the GPUs pretty much like the controller on the mobo would do with two separate cards.

[kpriess]

ac5 nice interface, also try mx2[mx3 weaker, but easier to deploy].
"in general" stock reference coolers of both 58x0 and 69x0 is WAY better than "alternatives", including expensive ones.

Thanks; So would you say that nothing can be done to improve the default setting (apart from adding water cooling)?

Watter Colling here would be probably the most expensive solution, with the plate for r5970 itself costing ~100 usd, then add pumps and all, plus it takes lots of space outside of box for the heat exchange part?

If you're planning to OC, WC it's the only way to go.. otherwise, stick to OEM..

[Basiley]

stock cooler just little more nosier than some was hope, but its perform solid in many situations, which i can't say about most other coolers.
which i never see/hear as problem, personally, not even noticing.
and its exhaust [significant amount of]heat air outside PC case, not flush it INSIDE PC case, multiplying termall mess inside :/

[Batouzo]

ac5 nice interface, also try mx2[mx3 weaker, but easier to deploy].
"in general" stock reference coolers of both 58x0 and 69x0 is WAY better than "alternatives", including expensive ones.

Thanks; So would you say that nothing can be done to improve the default setting (apart from adding water cooling)?

Watter Colling here would be probably the most expensive solution, with the plate for r5970 itself costing ~100 usd, then add pumps and all, plus it takes lots of space outside of box for the heat exchange part?

If you're planning to OC, WC it's the only way to go.. otherwise, stick to OEM..

We already OC it. Quite a lot, @830 from @725. Question is now should be OV too. On air this is certainly possible, though noisy. This is what we want to avoid.
Plus, keep elements cool and chilled for long-living of hardware.

[Basiley]

if you insisting on OC'ing dual-GPU card, improve case airflow and probably switch to water, yes :/
or phase change system[even more expensive and more dangerous].