How to watercool your Asus Matrix 580 GTX

[cravinmild]

The Matrix is non reference and does not accept watercooling. I have figured out a way to watercool the card and keep the same look. Its pretty cheap to do if you alrighty own the corsair Hxx series cooler.

Ive held off posting this till I had a few weeks to play with it,,,,make sure it was safe
Here is a link to two cards ive done now, the second being the Asus Matrix ROG card.

Check it out here:
http://www.overclock.net/nvidia-cool...i-corsair.html

Let me know what you think

[chrsplmr]

CravinMild, bring'n skills to the table...great job..thank you for sharing...and Welcome.

Since that is a closed system (the corsair) if your running 2 cards and wc'n the cpu...
you need 3? And [[I am asking because I do not know, not being a " Wise ( | ) " ]] is there a
$100+ - $300+ advantage over air? It looks cool, and WC seems to be the trend, but
bottom line is, does it run cooler--better?
That leaves the RAM---with the cpu clearances on the new boards--I had to leave
the fans off of it...noisy and rattle.....aaaahhhhh...advantage/Water.thnx.c.

[cravinmild]

I didnt plan that far ahead honestly. The first reason for watercooling my 560ti was to lower the noise. The other benifits were seen after the mod was done. Card temps were the second most noticable benifit, i knew it would be better but not as much as it was. The 560ti hit 1000core pretty easy on air but was loud. After the mod I just kept pushing it, and pushing it, and pushing it. I was as shocked as the next guy when i hit 1275 core and finnished a run of Unigine Heaven without a driver crash. It did only happen once but i filmed on my cell phone as proof lol.
I had the Corsair H70 in a box after upgrading to a H100, it was a way to use up components that were collecting dust. One thing i hate to do is shelf a perfectly good component and its allways something i consiter when upgrading.
I have Nvidia 3d vision and the 560ti was not cutting it in the fps department, i needed to upgrade. I could have tried the sli hack (crossfire only mobo) and risked another $250 but the 5xx series is getting long in the tooth as it is, figured if im going to sli hack ill do it with more powerfull cards. One 580 now and a second when the next card refresh happens and card prices drop on older cards. I will not be watercooling the second 580, this was just a toy to play with till that time.....like to get as much bang for my buck as i can. I picked the matrix as it seemed the best card to mod. If my 560ti can hit 1275 just imagine the benchmark scores ill hit with a modded pimped out 580.
I would not suggest this if your planning on sli two this way, or if you have a small case. I can hardly fit this all into one haf 932 which is consitered a very large case to begin with. Also if i was to sli i would lose my $160 sound card or $130 network card, seems crazy to shelf that much money for a $70 cooler, like taking a step backwards.

For me it was $70 unit that was unused and i own alrighty (sunkcost-so free), I love the H100, worth every penny and i would have gotten the Matrix or the lightning extreme anyways. All in all im only out the cost of the H100 so i say it was worth the cost. I turned on the pc this morning and my gpu temp was 23c and cpu was 15c, the pc is almost silent...i hear the fridge running more than the pc. By full winter i could hope for single digit on the cpu and in the teens for the gpu....or that is the hope.

Glad you liked it, after a while gaming gets boring, i havent gamed in weeks...just cant seem to enjoy it but benchmarking this baby gives me total satisfaction, the reponses are nice to hear too.

[Cyrekk]

To be honest I am not entirely sure that I can put faith in zip ties for holding down a block. Good job though, I really like the ingenuity! Props.

[Brian@ASUS]

i saw the oc.net post before, the only concern i had with that setup was being able to cool the vrm and memory. should post those matrix pics here!

[Cyrekk]

i saw the oc.net post before, the only concern i had with that setup was being able to cool the vrm and memory. should post those matrix pics here!

That is an extremely valid point. Also yes, post pics. If you are lucky chrsplmr might make you a new avatar out of them.

[cravinmild]

Here is a few pics with narration (oc.net didnt have narration) ill try to demonstate how my method improves cooling on those parts.

IMGP9976 by cravinmild, on Flickr

Here is the naked pcb, looking down on it without its heatsink. There is all sorts of crap on that pcb, none of which im going to try to pretend i know, cause i dont. The important part here is there are important sections on that pcb, namely that section with the black metal part surrounding it and again the other part....over there. All these important parts are mostly exposed without any type of heatsink attached to them save that black metal part on the pcb.

Here is a picture of the heat sink, its massive.

IMGP9977 by cravinmild, on Flickr
Important part, the heatsink only has TIM on one spot, nowhere else does heatsink come incontact with the pcb/other parts. Only the grahics chip and heatsink touch, held together by four screws.

IMGP9969 by cravinmild, on Flickr
The two fans line up with the two large finned sections and need to blow air into those finned section, once past the air gets to blow on the pcb/stuff on pcb. The air is also hotter as its picked up the heat going through the heatsink...could be as much as 78c...the hottest ive seen my Matrix get benchmarking.

IMGP9983 by cravinmild, on Flickr
You can see right through to the pcb here, ive removed the heatsink and was just dryfitting the shroud. There is no resistance between the fans and the pcb, those are big fans, 90mm each, thats alot of air movement. Right now, this alone allows for better cooling as the air is unheated by the heatsink and there is no heatsink to restrict the air flow.

Now just to gloat lol,,,kidding


zotacheatsinkon580 by cravinmild, on Flickr
This is my Zotac 560ti heatsink. The Matrix was my second mod, this is how i know the zipstraps are awsome for this mod. Not only is it totally stupid easy, i couldnt slide that pump around if i hit it with a hammer. Like i said it may as well be screwed. The matrix Had some tinny play, almost unmoveable but if you really tried you could get it to just budge. I figured once the tim cured abit, stiffened up some it would be rock solid.

IMGP9988 by cravinmild, on Flickr
Dry fitting the pump. I wanted to make sure the hoses came off the pcb NOT facing the motherboard. As it turns out i had to wedge one coolant line between the Motherboard and whatever room was left after snapping the Matrix in to its slot...got lucky there
I never modded the Corsair H70. The coolant lines were sleeved. Im weird that way, everything has to be sleeved. I didnt want to cut the lines to do it so i just stitched it on the back and i turn the sleeving so the stitches are seen.

_IGP9067 by cravinmild, on Flickr

_IGP9069 by cravinmild, on Flickr

Well worth the time IMO

_IGP9095 by cravinmild, on Flickr


IMGP9996 by cravinmild, on Flickr
Thats a close up of the H70 pump pressed against the graphics chip...i chose the card method to spread the TIM.


The fans and shroud are attaced to the rest of the card by 4 screws, two screws on each end that screw into the heatsink, no heatsink no way to keep the shroud attached to the pcb. The shroud now attaches to the pcb using a bracket i made from a black plastic coat hanger, i wanted somthing that would not short out the pcb. I cut it down with a haxfile blade i had lying around.
Just clips to the pcb

IMGP9981 by cravinmild, on Flickr

here is a benchmark. I was agressive with my overclocks. The first was 965mhz, then 1000mzh. Took three attemps to keep 1000mhz stable.

oc5801ghz by cravinmild, on Flickr

I really need to keep the "Matrix" lite, that was unconditional, needed to keep the light.

IMGP9993 by cravinmild, on Flickr
The H70 rad is square now, i was still dry fitting the card and had not screwed the rad down completely.
Quick shot of my Zotac 560ti, fantastic card btw, great overclocker after this mod. Their card had the same type heatsink design with only the graphics chip and heatsink touching. I had lots of people asking about worse cooling with this mod too. Note here too that the fan for the 560ti is completely removed, nothing cooled the pbc here. I ran this card like snot, really beat the crap out of it and i never had a single issue with this card. Works to this day perfectly and still overclocks poorly when its stock heatsink was replaced.

_IGP9527 by cravinmild, on Flickr

lowshot lite on by cravinmild, on Flickr

My Windows index score

indexscore by cravinmild, on Flickr


Thanks for letting me post some pics. Very fun card to play with. Cant wait to really beat this card up benchmarking l

[glenn with 2 n's]

lmao, first off all i can say is zip ties ftw! haha

i know the ek brand makes a i/o shield for the dcii gtx580 that looks like it could replace the 3 slot matrix i/o, all you have to do is mod the safemode button threw the ek cut out on the dealy, if the 3 slot take up is a concern to you or anyone else

mad props for this cravin, i had used zip ties on a build where most of the parts were thrown together and the cpu heat sink did'nt line up to mount on the mobo, soo zip ties it is =P

[cravinmild]

Thanks glenn

The zipties really do work well, its like the duct tape of the pc world. Still rock solid and the temps will drop more as winter comes. Yesterday morning i was 23c on the card. Ill be a happy camper when i hit the teens. Ive nothing left to mod, most everything i have bought has been modded in some way, be it sleeving or better than stock fans or how i choose to place components. Starting to get the itch again......

[glenn with 2 n's]

The zipties really do work well, its like the duct tape of the pc world.

lmao!! hahaha true story

well if your getting the itch for modding again, any ideas on how to go about a current hardware revamp for a alienware m9750?

i asked origin if they had any ideas since they were the original alienware peoples but all i got was a lame customer service response back =/ ..*******s ...no love

reason being i truly love the look and feel of that setup and it sucks seeing a computer just become unusable for current requirements (gaming wise) because of the shift/growth in tech

id be all about getting that laptop on par with current tech. at least gotta get a 64bit mobo in there cuz the stock one is restricted to 32bit.. blahhh lol