Arctic Accelero Xtreme III - Where to put the heatsinks?

[AfroHyena]

Hi everyone,



I bought the Accelero Xtreme III from Arctic to cool my GTX 1080 Aero from MSI.



It includes these small heatsinks to cool the RAM and VRMs, but I am unsure exactly which chips need them.



This is the GPU



I know I need to cool the RAM (red).

I am not sure about the green ones (capacitors?). It seems when I use image search that some people cool them and some don't.

The yellow ones are the mosfets? These need cooling I assume?

Then there are the blue ones which are capacitors for voltage control or something?



I talked to customer support and they said to definitely not use them on the chips marked in blue and yellow, but if the yellow ones are mosfets (are they?) they need cooling, right?



Thank you

 

[EarthDog]

The instructions should say?

I'd imagine blue and green go untouched.

 

[Blaylock]

You can also look at the original cooler to determine what was being cooled before.

 

[AfroHyena]

The instructions should say?

I'd imagine blue and green go untouched.

The manual just lists the components as "RAM" and "Voltage regulator". Other than that it has a sample installation on a GTX 680 where it looks like they just plop them onto almost every chip on the card. But looking at the PCB of a 680 I cant see the components analagous to the blue and green ones on the 1080.

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You can also look at the original cooler to determine what was being cooled before.

good point

 

[maxfly]

whatever you do dont glue the heatsinks onto your gpu or youll never get them off. the white epoxy they give you is permanent. you can put the heatsinks on everything you see just use thermaltape to attache them. i cant remember the best brand to get tho.

edit- also double check your gpu core contact. the little white spacer tubes were to long on mine so it didnt make clean contact. you may have to sand a little off of them to get the right fit.

 

[AfroHyena]

whatever you do dont glue the heatsinks onto your gpu or youll never get them off. the white epoxy they give you is permanent. you can put the heatsinks on everything you see just use thermaltape to attache them. i cant remember the best brand to get tho.

edit- also double check your gpu core contact. the little white spacer tubes were to long on mine so it didnt make clean contact. you may have to sand a little off of them to get the right fit.

thank you for the pointer.

i have already thought about getting thermal tape but am unsure of which one. i am afraid of it randomly coming of one day

also from what i could gather the thermal tapes all have way worse thermal conductivity compared to the adhesive. Then again one of them comes off and the other doesn't

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This one seems okay judging from the reviews

 

[maxfly]

yeah that seems to review well. maybe go with the thinner of the two for better heat transfer? iuno if itll even matter lol. you know i would pm Johan45 or Mr.Scott im pretty sure i remember one of them recommending thermal tape at some point in the past.

 

[EarthDog]

Are you sure it is thick enough?

I'd stick with the thermal pds...

 

[maxfly]

fujipoly! but of course i cant find thermal tape... just pads.
i know the part# fujipoly GTR-AD but its impossible to find anywhere to actually buy!!!!!!!!!!
so just cuz i requested a sample of it. we shall see hahaha.

 

[AfroHyena]

Are you sure it is thick enough?

I'd stick with the thermal pds...

i would have thought the thinner the better for heat transfer?

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fujipoly! but of course i cant find thermal tape... just pads.
i know the part# fujipoly GTR-AD but its impossible to find anywhere to actually buy!!!!!!!!!!
so just cuz i requested a sample of it. we shall see hahaha.

plus i would need to find a seller in germany/europe

 

[EarthDog]

Sometimes... but if it isnt making contact with the heatsink and component, it's pretty useless.

 

[AfroHyena]

sorry, what do you mean not making contact?

 

[EarthDog]

If you buy .25mm thick pads and the gap is 1mm (Read: more than .25mm) it won't touch. Typicallly, the MOSFETs (yellow), use a thermal pad. The thickness of the pad varies by card/heatsink maker and the heatsink. If a .25mm pad is required there, than .25mm tape can be used.

 

[AfroHyena]

ah sorry i did not make myself clear. The cooler comes with these heatsinks, which you are supposed to put/glue directly onto the chips individually

 

[EarthDog]

Oh boy.. that is my bad... I was thinking to the heatsink, not individual ones. In that case, that .25mm should work. What I did with those is to use a dab of glue in the corner and some thermal paste in the middle.

Tape seems like a lot cleaner of an idea

 

[AfroHyena]

But the consensus here seems to be to put the heatsinks on the RAM (red) and mosfets (yellow) and leave the rest?

 

[AfroHyena]

Also it seems that no matter what thermal tape product I research, invariably I will find someone who says they don't stick very well

 

[maxfly]

But the consensus here seems to be to put the heatsinks on the RAM (red) and mosfets (yellow) and leave the rest?

yes those are the primary heat producers.

Also it seems that no matter what thermal tape product I research, invariably I will find someone who says they don't stick very well

thats what ive found as well. altho the ones alphacool makes seem to be pretty solid from what ive read.

 

[AfroHyena]

thats what ive found as well. altho the ones alphacool makes seem to be pretty solid from what ive read.

yeah i was almost ready to buy one product from alphacool on amazon but then this guy "joes" ruined it with his review, saying they dont "stick very well"

 

[AfroHyena]

So after more research I decided to try and mix the thermal glue with arctic mx-4 în a 2:1 ratio. But after 1 hour of curing it was very easy to almost just lift them off.

Then I finally just used the themal glue on its own. I used fairly little, again having really no reference on how much to use. When I reassembled the card I noticed that the cooler had pushed against one of the RAM heatsinks, so now it sits slightly askew.
I really didnt feel like trying to peel it off again so i just put some insulation tape on the part of the cooler that brushed up against it

Surprisingly the card still works after everything

Before it would race to 82°C and throttle to about 1700 MHz. Now it reaches ~60°C max and runs at 1936 MHz

Edit: Also thank you to everyone