• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Alternative Mosfet cooling- Gigabyte 990XA-UD3

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Anonaru

Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2012
Good afternoon!

First off, I made a goof. These are 990FXA-UD3 boards, not XA. Next..

I am currently torturing a few boards so that I gain a much better understanding of how well the work, strengths, weaknesses, gimmicks, etc..

I'm an owner, user, and torturer of the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 boards, and have come to find that these little guys come in pretty well at their price point. They have two gimmicks that frighten me when it comes to higher level OC'ing, and they both revolve around temperature--

The NB and Mosfets get extraordinarily hot on this board. Like, frighteningly so. Fixing this issue on the NB is easy enough, any typical aftermarket NB cooler typically is better than what comes on the board, and I got these down on my in-shop 6300 running at 5.1GHz-- Last thermal probing put the surface of the aftermarket NB HS at something like 52*c with no added airflow.

The mosfets on the other hand thermal throttle at 5.1GHz and measured beyond the safe limits of the board without forcing a large amount of airflow across the Heat sink (Non-safe numbers measured on heatsink surface, I don't even wanna know how hot the mosfets themselves got). I have no problem forcing air across these heatsinks, but I would rather a more effective cooling solution.

So, to the question. I'm looking for aftermarket cooling solutions for mosfets. Are there any high-end / extreme cooling solutions available? The sinks on these Gigabyte boards are rubbish! I don't think the little 4-pin micro-coolers would be more effective, I'm looking for single-peice mosfet cooler. Thanks!
 
Last edited:
Mm, these look about like what I had found on my own. I'm gonna give one of these a try / report back with the temps I get. Thanks a bunch!
 
I see you're satisfied with the answers, but just to toss another one out there.

I used an Enzotech MST-88 on my 990FXA-UD3 which should be the same length as your 990XA.

Looked pretty too.


Edit: 94mm length in case that's useful to you.
 
I see you're satisfied with the answers, but just to toss another one out there.

I used an Enzotech MST-88 on my 990FXA-UD3 which should be the same length as your 990XA.

Looked pretty too.


Edit: 94mm length in case that's useful to you.

Aye, the HS on these boards is exactly the same.. Here comes the LMAO-- I have FXA's in the shop. Wonder how I messed that up. So yes, this is extremely useful to me, how does this one cool compared to the stock HS?
 
I'm not sure how the stock one performed because I never gave it a chance. On the other hand the issue with my FX-6100 @5.0GHz was CPU cooling not VRM throttling and I think that was a fair bit higher power draw than the 6300 at 5.1. That was just using a 120mm rear exhaust as well, if you give it some airflow it responds really well.
 
Anonaru, on my Asus M5A99x I was having the same issue. My heatsink was getting so hot it was painful to put my finger on it. I wasn't pushing clocks to the extreme mind you, but I mounted a 80mm fan on the heatsink blowing down on it and it made a difference. Take it for what its worth.
 
I use the EK Gigabyte VRM block on my 990FXA-UD3 works like a champ, @ 5+ Ghz my vrm never gets over 60C
 
Back