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R9 280x + Arctic Accelero - Temps too high?

G

gsilver

Gawd
Joined
Oct 12, 2010
Messages
648
So, I bought an Asus R9 280x, and felt that the stock cooler was too loud, so I went and bought an Arctic Accelero 7970. I messed up the first time that I tried to install it and briefly lifted up the HSF from the video card, but I was very careful the second time and used a very even layer of thermal paste.

Right now, I'm seeing 48 degrees at idle, and a brief gaming session brought temperatures up as high as 69 degrees. I only played a half hour or so, since I don't want to push it with a possibly incorrectly installed HSF, but this may just be how it is.

Is anyone experienced with this combination?
 
gsilver said:
So, I bought an Asus R9 280x, and felt that the stock cooler was too loud, so I went and bought an Arctic Accelero 7970. I messed up the first time that I tried to install it and briefly lifted up the HSF from the video card, but I was very careful the second time and used a very even layer of thermal paste.

Right now, I'm seeing 48 degrees at idle, and a brief gaming session brought temperatures up as high as 69 degrees. I only played a half hour or so, since I don't want to push it with a possibly incorrectly installed HSF, but this may just be how it is.

Is anyone experienced with this combination?
Click to expand...

I doubt many people have done much in the way of aftermarket cooling on these cards so far, they haven't been out for that long.
 
I don't think 69 is anything to worry about. 280x is pretty much 7970, as you know, so search for temps on that.
 
Hmm...
It's a real PITA to redo the thermal paste with this cooler, but the benchmarks that I can find put the 7970 overclocked to 1100mhz (which the R9 280 basically is... just a bit lower) with the Accelero put the idle/load temperatures at 32/58, but the stock cooler at 79 degrees during load, which mine is well under.

Should I try to reapply the thermal compound?
 
What case are you using? Temps on coolers like these depend heavily on the airflow and size of your case. Most of the reviews on aftermarket coolers and non-oem coolers are tested on an open bench which will give much better temps then even a mid tower with a few 120mm fans. 10c higher then what you might see online isn't unreasonable. Its about the difference I get from testing on my open bench vs putting the same card and cooler in my mid tower.
 
I'm using a Silverstone FT03 case, with only one case fan, a low-power Noctura and a Heligon HE02, with the side panel removed (I'm trying for a build that is as quiet as possible)

A bit more time at idle has brought the temperature down to 47, and I assume that it'll drop a few more overnight once the thermal paste has had time to set... but we're still looking at ~15 degrees over the expected idle temps.
 
Yeah now that you mention it again that idle is high. Are you sure the card is downclocking to 300mhz when idle?
 
Which Asus card? I thought most review sites considered the top 2 heat sink fan to be among the coolest and quietest.
 
Could be because of orientation of the cooler. In the "vertical" orientation the FT03 puts most of the cooler is below the heat source.
a3e6c0cd4fe1c0bb86985adb596688c7_0.png


From Silverstone's Q/A page:
Q: I have a custom cooler, how do I know which way the heat pipes should be situated to obtain the best performance in the FT03?
A: There are two main types of heat pipes used in popular aftermarket coolers, they are groove and powder. Groove heat pipes are very susceptible to gravity while powder heat pipes are less so. To achieve best performance in either heat pipe technology, they need to be placed horizontally or have the heat source side located below the other end of the heat pipe. We recommend choosing and installing components with heat pipes carefully by taking into consideration of the following examples:
Motherboard:
133-1.jpg

The orientation of an enthusiast motherboard in a normal ATX case

133-2.jpg

The orientation of an enthusiast motherboard in the FT03

As the illustrations above show, most enthusiast motherboards with heat pipes will work fine in the FT03, the heat source is located below other parts of the heat pipe.

CPU cooler:
133-3-a.jpg

good orientation
133-32-b.jpg

good orientation
133-33-c.jpg

bad orientation

Many CPU coolers can be rotated when installing on motherboards, the illustration here shows a SilverStone NT06-E

VGA cooler:
133-4.jpg

The illustration here shows a VGA cooler that will not work well in the FT03 because the heat source side (touching the GPU) ends up being located higher than the other end.
Click to expand...

From what I understand your cooler won't be as bad as the example above because the heat pipes exit directly out the bottom of the GPU block, not out the top and then bending 180° pointing down. Still though, it's not the ideal orientation for this type of cooler. The best types of coolers are the ones who's heat pipes go out the sides of the block, like the 1st CPU cooler pic, before turning down, or the vapor chamber coolers that don't use heat pipes.
 
Thanks for the RE orientation of heatpipes.

Well, I tried redoing the thermal paste again, and the idle temps dropped to 44-45... Slightly lower than before, but not by much.
 
I had a 580 with accelero in an rv03 and idled at about 28°C and max load I ever saw was 58°C with a pretty heavy overclock. Its really a great cooler. The best ive found for gpu is to spread a really really thing layer then put a tiny dot in the middle. I do the same on cpu but a bigger dot. If your spreading a thing layer then mounting cooler without dot in the middle there will be air pockets and wont cool near as well. Try the way I said you will get better results. Unless you have 30°C + ambients thats the only way I could see temps like that on that cooler. That or your gpu is crappy bin with 1.3v stock or something. Idles should still be lower than that if that were the case tho.
 
Thermal paste, no matter how shitty the original setup is, will not get 20+ temps. Is your cooler mounted properly? Tight contact between the core and cooler? How is your case airflow? What are your ambient temps? 15 degrees above ambients is not unheard of, especially with poor airflow.
 
I have the same case with a different cooler (lightning) for the gpu. The thing is our case has pitiful airflow so you are going to need more than that one fan to cool your card. I am not sure what kind of cpu cooler you have but in my case I replaced all 3 of the silverstone fans with corsair fans and my temps dropped from 5-10 degrees depending on the game.

Idle~28-31c
Load~60~65c
Overclocked~80c Crysis 3
 
I'm thinking that the surface may just be too uneven for proper operation.

The seller I purchased it from offers no warranty, and nor does the manufacturer, so returning it is out of the question.

Is it difficult to lap it? The heatsink is kind of unbalanced.
 
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