RX 480 with AIO water cooler added. 1470 MHz all day. [Video]

1470 is impressive. I never thought they would get that high without LN2 or dry ice. Pretty neat really.
 
Maddness said:
1470 is impressive. I never thought they would get that high without LN2 or dry ice. Pretty neat really.
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And on a cheap reference 6pin card at that with only a somewhat cheap Frankenstein 240mm AIO watercooler and ceap passive sinks on vrms and memory. I would like to see him Re-Do it with a nice full cover block and appropriate AIO 240mm cooler. In other words i really like his results but i didn't so much care for the cooler and almost useless fan attached. The lighted water block itself was ok.....but i wonder if a cover would work better much less look so much better!

Also i would have liked if he listed the cost for everything lol.....but instead he used some kind of clearance that was 80% off? Doesn't help us if we cant get the same deal lol
 
Dayaks said:
He has the fan on the wrong side.... I realize it's too big, but the VRMs aren't being cooled.
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He covers that in the video. He acknowledges that the fan isn't doing much of anything for the VRMs, but it is directly blowing on the adjacent memory modules. He cannibalized the aluminum heatsinks and directly attached them to the VRMs and memory modules. The VRMs end up being passively cooled with indirect airflow from the case intake side fan. He also acknowledges that this is a limitation and says that's why he keeps the OC at only 1470 MHz, as the stable max on the card is actually 1517 MHz @ 1.35 V but he's concerned that the VRMs cant safely sustain that at load with such relatively poor cooling. That's why he backed it down to 1470 for a stable 24/7 clock.

pippenainteasy said:
Did this card win the silicon lottery? I've seen other 480s that only hit 1340MHz on water.
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He also knocked down the marketing a bit on the OC headroom, pointing out that while NV says the spec boost for the 1060 is 1708 MHz, there isn't a model available that actually runs that way. *Every* 1060 boosts itself to around 1850 MHz out of the box with no adjustment in voltage or power limit, so the spec boost clock is meaningless because you can't actually buy an NV card that only boosts itself to 1708. The actual OC headroom for a 1060 is 300 MHz if you're really lucky, but 250 Mhz seems to be the standard. A 250 MHz OC is around 13.5% OC.

Conversely, the 480 reference can't even hold the 1266 with the reference cooler but throttles to around 1160. The same level of OC you can expect from a 1060 (13.5%) would put a 480 at 1323 MHz (which right where almost every AIB partner card lands). He managed 1470 as a 24/7 OC, so another 11% past a properly cooled 480. If it's a lottery card, great for him. But overall, AIB 480s and pretty much all 1060's share about the same % headroom for overclocking from reference. The difference here is that it's actually possible to get another 11+% beyond that from a 480. There is no 1060 that will hit 2.3 GHz as a 24/7 clock.

Edit: Another thing to consider is whether the 480's you're referencing had been flashed to unlock the voltage limits. He starts out the video saying that you can't reach this performance level with the card locked at 1.15 V, maxed.
 
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Genuine question.

Is there significant benefit to get 480 that high, or is it a purely academic exercise?
 
jbc029 said:
He covers that in the video...
Edit: Another thing to consider is whether the 480's you're referencing had been flashed to unlock the voltage limits. He starts out the video saying that you can't reach this performance level with the card locked at 1.15 V, maxed.
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^^What bothers me is that he doesn't go into detail about the process. From what I gathered, you need the asus test bios on air, similar to the one that der8auer used. You can get a variety of bios' but they are not signed so you have to stick to the test bios because its signed and that one unfortunately forces you to use gputweak ii, the worst freaking piece of software imaginable or that could just be my opinion lol. There is a hack for unsigned bios with a modded.sys driver file but then that starts getting piecemealed together. The test bios gets you 225w TDP limit with +50% on PT with 1.4v core volt limit. You can also try out the LN2 bios but lol that is not for the faint of heart and you'd probably have to add some wire to the voltage junction/mod to keep that inductor from frying.


chenw said:
Genuine question.

Is there significant benefit to get 480 that high, or is it a purely academic exercise?
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If you can keep it cool enough to run your games then obviously that is a real gain and not just academic.
 
thesmokingman said:
If you can keep it cool enough to run your games then obviously that is a real gain and not just academic.
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I wasn't talking about temperature, I was talking about going through the bother of installing an AIO on a $250 GPU, if there is real world benefit to be had besides temperature.

I was under the impression that 480 didn't scale terribly well against clock rate.
 
chenw said:
I wasn't talking about temperature, I was talking about going through the bother of installing an AIO on a $250 GPU, if there is real world benefit to be had besides temperature.

I was under the impression that 480 didn't scale terribly well against clock rate.
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Whatever you're meaning it didn't come across in your first post. What real world benefit besides temp... hmm how about that 1470mhz overclock that netted quite some increase in fps?

Anyways, we haven't seen or maybe I haven't bothered to look up how many ppl out there have achieved this but if its true its a pretty damn good gain for a cheap cooling solution.
 
chenw said:
I wasn't talking about temperature, I was talking about going through the bother of installing an AIO on a $250 GPU, if there is real world benefit to be had besides temperature.

I was under the impression that 480 didn't scale terribly well against clock rate.
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lol he was managing a solid 15fps gain over the standard boost clocks.....Heck most over clocks net 5fps at most lol.....So yea its an impressive gain.
 
That's basically what I am asking, what sort of fps are we looking at from being able to OC that high as opposed to OC's AIB cards at their respective stocks. Are we talking 5%? 10%? what?

I was under the impression that fps from 480 didn't scale that well from OC'ing.

I'll tell you what, forget I ever asked that question, because apparently my English isn't anywhere near what I thought it would be, or that my question came through as moronic question.
 
chenw said:
That's basically what I am asking, what sort of fps are we looking at from being able to OC that high as opposed to OC's AIB cards at their respective stocks. Are we talking 5%? 10%? what?

I was under the impression that fps from 480 didn't scale that well from OC'ing.

I'll tell you what, forget I ever asked that question, because apparently my English isn't anywhere near what I thought it would be, or that my question came through as moronic question.
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Considering it's only ~8% over air it's more for the fun of it. You'd be better off buying a 1070 or Vega (?) for performance.
 
chenw said:
That's basically what I am asking, what sort of fps are we looking at from being able to OC that high as opposed to OC's AIB cards at their respective stocks. Are we talking 5%? 10%? what?

I was under the impression that fps from 480 didn't scale that well from OC'ing.

I'll tell you what, forget I ever asked that question, because apparently my English isn't anywhere near what I thought it would be, or that my question came through as moronic question.
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Nobody had a ready answer until primetime watched the video and saw it was a 15fps difference. ;) Your English is impeccable.
 
Dayaks said:
Considering it's only ~8% over air it's more for the fun of it. You'd be better off buying a 1070 or Vega (?) for performance.
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True, but if you go with a full water block and have a large enough radiator with slow fans, then you can have a near silent PC that never sees high temps.
 
primetime said:
your on water......what all the time clocks have you got working on yours?
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My lazy OC is 1430. I can do 1470 in seemingly all games except Warframe. When I hit 270+ fps in Warframe, I get a black screen and have to use the Task Manager to close it. :(

I'm probably going to resurrect my old Cooler Master Stacker case and use a larger radiator. I only hit 55c nowadays, but I want to use really large fans to make my PC completely silent. Well these hard drives are anything but silent. Not sure what to do about them.
 
cageymaru said:
True, but if you go with a full water block and have a large enough radiator with slow fans, then you can have a near silent PC that never sees high temps.
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Leave a 1070 FE at stock and you can't hear it. Of course that's not as much fun. :)
 
Dayaks said:
Leave a 1070 FE at stock and you can't hear it. Of course that's not as much fun. :)
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I have a full water loop. I would buy a block for a 1070 FE also. If I had a 750ti I would put a block on it.
 
Dayaks said:
He has the fan on the wrong side.... I realize it's too big, but the VRMs aren't being cooled.
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I did a little research on this cooler and found that the GPU cooling block is only held by four screws that helds the shroud and that cooler together hence a lil bit of DIY mod could have the orientation of the fan reversed to the left side.

DSC_0012_zpsfhdagwym.jpg


DSC_0002_zps4trmx41m.jpg

DSC_0015_zpsjwboxpip.jpg
 
jcagara08 said:
I did a little research on this cooler and found that the GPU cooling block is only held by four screws that helds the shroud and that cooler together hence a lil bit of DIY mod could have the orientation of the fareversed to the left side.
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There simply isn't enough room on the left side between the GPU die and the bracket to fit the fan. Maybe a smaller fan could be adapted with some effort.
 
smithkt said:
There simply isn't enough room on the left side between the GPU die and the bracket to fit the fan. Maybe a smaller fan could be adapted with some effort.
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I would have just epoxied a small 80mm to the side of the unit. A few minutes cure time, bam done. It'd make me nervous OC'ing a card like that hoping on almost passive flow.
 
I had a similar situation putting an AIO on my 7870xt. I was able to zip tie an old 80mm cpu fan over the VRMs. It cut the vrm temps by 40 degrees Celcius
 
You know I was worried about my VRM temps also as my water block doesn't cover them. Then I actually played some games at 1430MHz and 1256mV. They hit 77c. They are rated for 125c. I think they will be just fine with the cooler in the video as he undoubtedly has more air flow over them than I do. With that said there is PLENTY of room to rig an old CPU fan over them. Something like a 80mm?

See the slot in the image below? That's where the VRMs are.

WC40OXS_144620_800x800.png
 
cageymaru said:
You know I was worried about my VRM temps also as my water block doesn't cover them. Then I actually played some games at 1430MHz and 1256mV. They hit 77c. They are rated for 125c. I think they will be just fine with the cooler in the video as he undoubtedly has more air flow over them than I do. With that said there is PLENTY of room to rig an old CPU fan over them. Something like a 80mm?

See the slot in the image below? That's where the VRMs are.

WC40OXS_144620_800x800.png
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It does cool the FETs though, which is where most of the heat in generated. The slot is only for the inductors and caps which don't really need it.

77C is fine. I'm personally not a huge fan of going higher though. 125C.... have to start worrying about the board and components around it.
 
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Dayaks said:
It does cool the FETs though, which is where most of the heat in generated. The slot is only for the inductors and caps which don't really need it.

77C is fine. I'm personally not a huge fan of going higher though. 125C.... have to start worrying about the board and components around it.
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77C? LOL the VRM temps on my Powercolor 7870xt often hit 100 degrees with the stock cooler in place. It was stated this was as designed and acceptable because the parts used were rated for even higher temps. The card was perfectly stable like that but I just wasn't comfortable letting them run that hot. Now they run a nice cool mid 50s while gaming.
 
cageymaru said:
You know I was worried about my VRM temps also as my water block doesn't cover them. Then I actually played some games at 1430MHz and 1256mV. They hit 77c. They are rated for 125c. I think they will be just fine with the cooler in the video as he undoubtedly has more air flow over them than I do. With that said there is PLENTY of room to rig an old CPU fan over them. Something like a 80mm?

See the slot in the image below? That's where the VRMs are.

WC40OXS_144620_800x800.png
Click to expand...

Dayaks said:
It does cool the FETs though, which is where most of the heat in generated. The slot is only for the inductors and caps which don't really need it.

77C is fine. I'm personally not a huge fan of going higher though. 125C.... have to start worrying about the board and components around it.
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Yea that empty space is the chokes/inductors. XSPC hardly ever actively cool the vrms because they are the cheaper option in most cases. Ya should have gone with the EK block for active vrm cooling. Look at the pics in the link below, no active water channel over the vrms. Compare that with the EK.

Blade Radeon RX480
 
thesmokingman said:
Yea that empty space is the chokes/inductors. XSPC hardly ever actively cool the vrms because they are the cheaper option in most cases. Ya should have gone with the EK block for active vrm cooling. Look at the pics in the link below, no active water channel over the vrms. Compare that with the EK.

Blade Radeon RX480
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There is a small difference in price. And I thought long and hard about it for sometime before I made my decision.

The Blade was $66 + $8 shipping @Performance PCs. I actually ordered mine from OutletPC via Amazon for $72 with free Prime shipping. I just looked on Amazon and Performance PCs is selling them for $69 with free shipping.
XSPC Blade Radeon RX480 Full Cover Waterblock for Radeon RX480 by XSPC (Black color)


The EKWB is $120. Don't know if there is shipping involved.
Radeon RX 400 Series - Full Cover for AMD® Radeon® - GPU Blocks - Water Blocks – EK Webshop


Here is the EKWB.

ekfc-amd-rx480_cp-front_1600.jpg


Yes, I am a cheapass. :)
 
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thesmokingman said:
Yea that empty space is the chokes/inductors. XSPC hardly ever actively cool the vrms because they are the cheaper option in most cases. Ya should have gone with the EK block for active vrm cooling. Look at the pics in the link below, no active water channel over the vrms. Compare that with the EK.

Blade Radeon RX480
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Ahh I was wondering if a channel went over there. Yeah it's not ideal, but copper is a good heat conductor.. And there's ~35C water somewhere. If someone was going to push to 1.35V you'd probably want something more... Active.

I worked in thermoplastics. Not sure what the formula is exactly on these boards but most thermoplastics lose a lot of integrity as you go up in temperature. You don't have to be anyplace close to forming temp. Everyone said the 290x was fine running at 92C because it was designed for it but the failure rates were atrocious on those cards. Generally nothing likes excessive heat and even if it's rated for a temp generally the life is derated.
 
I might be missing something here, but if you buy a custom RX 480 for ~$270 and add another $70-$100 in watercooling, would you not have been better off putting that money into a GTX 1070 or something? Heck the Fury X was at $400 the past few weeks. I guess I just never understood spending 50%+ to improve a mid range card when a card that costs the same will still beat it easily.
 
-Strelok- said:
I might be missing something here, but if you buy a custom RX 480 for ~$270 and add another $70-$100 in watercooling, would you not have been better off putting that money into a GTX 1070 or something? Heck the Fury X was at $400 the past few weeks. I guess I just never understood spending 50%+ to improve a mid range card when a card that costs the same will still beat it easily.
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you miss the point of it.......the author made the video using super cheap deals........figure 30 bucks for the water cooling setup (70%off) and a reference card for 249 shipped at most, so i think his final cost was only around $279. He was NOT using a AIB card at all. Of course like i already said, how often do we find AIO water setups 70% off? A few other things he already had like the metal grade thermal compound and heat sinks for the vrms and what not. Not everyone is just going to have that stuff lying around.
 
If you can get it for that price, then it is 100% worth it no doubt.
 
primetime said:
lol he was managing a solid 15fps gain over the standard boost clocks.....Heck most over clocks net 5fps at most lol.....So yea its an impressive gain.
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Right. You're paying over a hundred dollars more than a stock RX 480 for an watercooler that adds 10% more performance over base overclock. Could have gotten better than that with a GTX 1070, and lower power consumption.

The point is, this is just a pointless exercise for most people. Excessive overclocking and volt modding requires expensive water cooling. Outside of hacks and/or for bragging rights, this will not be commonplace.
 
defaultluser said:
Right. You're paying over a hundred dollars more than a stock RX 480 AIO cooler for 10% more performance. Could have gotten better than that with a GTX 1070, and lower power consumption.
The point is, this is just a pointless exercise for most people. Excessive overclocking and volt modding requires expensive water cooling.
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Im going to guess your NOT actually reading anything people are posting cause the Author only spent around 279 TOTAL . KNOW ONE said spending 400 dollars was a better value than a cheap model 1070 lol! And if anyone actually does its because there just AMD enthusiasts like cageymaru which is his choice and nothing wrong with it
 
primetime said:
Im going to guess your NOT actually reading anything people are posting cause the Author only spent around 279 TOTAL . KNOW ONE said spending 400 dollars was a better value than a cheap model 1070 lol! And if anyone actually does its because there just AMD enthusiasts like cageymaru which is his choice and nothing wrong with it
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I know he paid nothing. I know the concept of a hack. I'm saying this is not going to change the overall overclock outlook on the RX 480 for the rest of the world.

It's still expensive as fuck to perform for the vast majority of people, and we don't know how lucky he was in the silicon lottery.
 
cageymaru said:
Nobody had a ready answer until primetime watched the video and saw it was a 15fps difference. ;) Your English is impeccable.
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Thank you, but apparently my question got interpreted as I don't know what watercooling actually does and got a flat answer.

I was asking whether there is actual performance to be had that made it worth the extra cost on top of a mid-ranged card that is 480, or whether this was just a case of "because they can" (and thus, an academic exercise), but evidently, it was interpreted much too different.

I have no problems with people doing things like this for a hobby (people OC CPUs to break world records for the sake of breaking it), I personally wouldn't because my hobby lies in games, not the hardware.
 
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