Quadro M2000 Thermally Limited, Recommendations Choosing / Modding a Aftermarket Cooler?

[boddole]

Hello everyone, I was thinking of doing a bios mod to my M2000 (53mm 'side to side' spacing), but it is clearly thermally limited first and foremost (even after re-paste and mount). Max allowed clock seems to be 1227 mhz, but after hitting 80c, clocks move (and stay) to 1050-1150 based on workload, making bios modding past its current limits basically moot. So I've looked for coolers and they all basically fall into these categories:

A) Proper spacing, decent cost (since I don't think it makes sense to spend a large portion of the card cost just on the cooler), may not actually be any better than the stock heatsink [lots of 'custom' after market heatsinks like this sort of thing: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/326...&terminal_id=7f1f8e6da5c34b61bc9184a3e709347b].



B) Fit, ok-ish price, may be way too big for the card (for example having one end extend out past the video outputs) / have clearance issues [basically real gpu heatsinks with the same mount spacing like this: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/400...-1;35.0;-1;-1@salePrice;USD;search-mainSearch]



At his point I think I've looked at so many coolers and price points my brain is melting...This is my front runner so far [https://www.ebay.com/itm/EverCool-F...eForce-ATI-Radeon-VC-RHE-/113148499005?_ul=IN], and I was wondering if anyone else had any suggestions / tips on picking aftermarket coolers in general (or for Quadros specifically).

[I know Arctic used to make some coolers that would basically be perfect for this, but it seems they were all discontinued a year or two ago and are almost nowhere to be found expect on ebay for crazy prices...]

Any ideas appreciated, thank you for reading.

 

[Blaylock]

Unfortunately, you are going to have a difficult time finding a cooler for that GPU. It's quite old now and the Quadro line is not known for aftermarket support. You could always try contacting Nvidia about a replacement cooler. It costs nothing to ask. I have no idea if any of the options listed will fit or even be a better option for you as there is little information about the M2000 cooler.

Have you tried looking for a dead Quadro M2000 (or similar model) to salvage the heatsink and/or fan?

 

[EarthDog]

I'm not sure what availability looks like, but I have to agree with Blay here and that options are limited. These cards aren't meant to be overclocked in the first place and I wonder how much headroom they have (and what that translates to as a performance increase).

 

[boddole]

Unfortunately, you are going to have a difficult time finding a cooler for that GPU. It's quite old now and the Quadro line is not known for aftermarket support. You could always try contacting Nvidia about a replacement cooler. It costs nothing to ask. I have no idea if any of the options listed will fit or even be a better option for you as there is little information about the M2000 cooler.

Have you tried looking for a dead Quadro M2000 (or similar model) to salvage the heatsink and/or fan?

As far as I can tell there isn't anything 'wrong' (from a specs. perspective) on the heatsink or fan, it just isn't enough. This isn't exactly the same model but it is basically the same cooler [https://linustechtips.com/topic/1118722-help-me-water-cool-a-quadro-please/] in the first two pictures. The fan BIOS settings are surprisingly conservative. When it starts down-clocking the fan is only at 75% / 2000 rpm. I've got a GT1030 that goes to 4200 rpm at 100% (total overkill I just find it funny), I would have thought a blower fan would be much more aggressive in both % and rpm (that is what I've always seen before anyway). I think the generic EverCool one seems like a decent gamble (should be better, while not being relatively enormous to where it won't fit)...I'm certainly willing to do some 'strategic bending' to make it fit if that is what it takes.

May as well ask Nvidia, might be a strange enough of a question for them to respond.

I'm not sure what availability looks like, but I have to agree with Blay here and that options are limited. These cards aren't meant to be overclocked in the first place and I wonder how much headroom they have (and what that translates to as a performance increase).

-I'll certainly mention it once I've got everything settled. I've only seen one post on the matter (different M model) and the 3DMark high scores to go off of (though a lot of the 3DM values seem 'off', many of the top cards just report the base frequency). Seems a few hundred mhz core and memory is at least possible. That said, if the cooler can even just keep the stock BIOS at 1227 instead of 1050-1150 that is +7-17% core gain in and of itself.

 

[boddole]

Well...its been a while but - results! (power going on and off here so...no flashing today...) [oh also, tired asking Nvidia. As soon as I mentioned HP they told me to take hike. Tried HP, no support for it anymore...wheeeee]

Preamble:
Cooler-
Ended up going with the Evercool 2, surprised how small it was in person. Mounted fine but I have no idea if the mounting pressure is 'good' or not (not a whole lot on info out there on this thing from 2011...). The screws seem to stick up quite far on the opposite side of the card and the rubber pads are pointless (not touched by anything). That said I didn't want to push my luck on the tightening and break anything so it is what it is.

Currently running it at 12v max 3000 RPM, sounds like a tiny hand vacuum cleaner, will eventually use one of those 12/7/5v cables I have to calm it down a bit. Temperatures are yet to exceed 65c under full load, so roughly 50% power probably will have it 70-75 with the default throttle area being 80c (though it allows up to 95c in stock bios).

Test System-
I won't get in to why, but the test system I've got this setup on is kind of derpy...HDD, Single Channel RAM, i5 7400 in a old Acer pre-built. Don't know how much dual channel and or 'better' RAM would matter (apparently it can matter in Timespy a lot), and based off the other Hall of Fame scores / clock figures, I have a feeling it would make a 'noticeable' difference (more on that later).

Benchmarking-
I'm just going to talk about Timespy here (graphics score only), since it has the most results to compare against and probably pushes the card 'harder' than most others aside from stress tests.


Actual Results:
Stock State-
I have in my notes the stock score was 1550, putting it in the 100+ HOF area (basically probably dead center out of the ~225 results). Card would downclock itself around 1050-1150 in general testing (out of 1227) after a few minutes of use.

The Cooler-
Adding the cooler bumped the score to 1577 (+~1.75%) [t-36th] and the card wasn't trying to melt itself, so that is something I guess.

Undervolting-
A undervolt to 1.0250 (from 1.1310, +~10%) bumped the score to 1594 (2.8%) [8th]. Not really sure why other than maybe the card still thought it had to throttle for whatever reason causing the clocks to fluctuate and this stopped it. Or possibly it was over-drawing from the PCIE slot and that caused power loss and so on.

-[for all the following the stock voltage is used]-
Memory-
+550 (+16.67%) seems stable and gives a score of 1633 (+~5.35%) [t-4th]. +775 will run and give a better score though with obvious artifacting. +1000 is a crash.

Core-
+254 (20.7%) seems stable and scores 1747 (+~12.7%) [3rd]. +304 is a crash.

Sub-Timings (L2C, XBAR, SYS)-
Ran all the sub-timings in unison from stock at 1392.5 to 1481 (6.3%) and 1591 (14.25%). 1481 (same value as the core clock) scored juuust a bit higher than default 1753 vs. 1747. However 1591 score slightly worse at 1745.

Tried heavy down-clocking on these (1000, 500) to see if core would boost higher, nope, still crashed at +304.

I also tried matching sub-timings with the card at 'max' clocks and mem and the score was slightly worse.

Currently it looks like there is no difference playing with these, so they go back to default for now.

Overall-
Core at +254 and Mem at +550 scored 1820 (+~17.4%) [3rd]

2nd place (really 1st place since 1st used 2 cards...) is ahead by +15 points with a Core of 1506 (+25) and Mem of 3506 (-344). So, would dual-channel be enough? Maybe, will find out when this gets moved to my 'main' system. Could also try bumping clock and mem a little bit as well just to see what happens.


That is everything up to now.

 

[Janus67]

Nice I'm depth post there! I'd recommend bumping your overall system and see what you can get. I imagine dual channel RAM and a faster processor would give at least some points.

 

[MaddMutt]

I slapped together a basic computer for my son’s friend from my extra benching parts. I made him buy a gpu - Zoltec AMP gtx-1060 6gb from e-bay($225) before I would donate my parts. It has a AsRock z170m extreme 4, G.Skill 2x 4gb 4000 19-21-21-35 (Micron x die), and a i5-7400. I could not get the memory to work at XMP :-( The fastest I could get it to post was 3600__18-18-18-32.
I have ran this MB with a i7-6700k and I know it can run memory at 4000+ so I have to fault the CPU’s IMC -> i5-7400 <-. He told me late yesterday that he has been trying to overclock this setup and the fastest he’s gotten (he’s a complete beginner) was 3200 on the memory. I’m sure he didn’t increase the SA/IO or V while trying his overclock. IIRC you will receive a boost in Time Spy from also increasing the CPU/Cache speed when using a K proccesor.