skkane

970 to 980 ti is a big improvement. I would be happy if it comes out like that.

Not quite. Maxwell scales really well with low temps. You can push your oveclocks considerably if you can keep it under 40.

I avoided evga's units based on the noisy pump reports but almost gave up and jumped on their boat. Glad I could not find them in stock when i placed my order :D

I'm using akasa thermal tape. They don't stick that good but enough to stay there if i'm carefull with the card. The vrm chips are very small so the contact point is not that great.

Sounds right for those clocks/volts. Enjoy! :cool: Up from 1440 gaming stable to 1490 on my cards since switching from the air coolers. I can bench at 1510, (66/72 asics). The vrm fan is quiet even at full blast, yes. I've attached small heatsinks underneath the bracket for the vrm's. That should be better then a midplate (bog standard sheet of metal). What ambient temps u have in the room btw? 20c? too cold for my skin:) I go up to 49/52 (2nd card has bad TIM apply) at 1.26v but my ambient temps are in the 23-26C range, idle at 26/28 currently.

Yes, it only fits the asetek? round pump head only. Not the newer square designs unfortunately :(

Yes, forgot to add that you don't have to use nzxt's square backplate thing if your card already has a nice backplace on. Just use the screws and it will work fine. pcper showed some pretty bad temps (82c or something close) on the vrm's if I recall correctly but don't know, my finger didn't feel any of it.

Krk G10 bracket for 30$. Out for years, tried and tested. The no VRM cooling thing is BS. Small heatsinks cost 5$. I ran my cards for almost one month without any heatsinks since I was too lazy to take it apart again to add them. Didn't notice any problems, stuck my finger behind the fan, couldn't feel any huge 100C heat in there... not a damn thing actually. The vrm cooling part is WAY overhyped. The pump head attaches to the bracket then to the card so only 4 screws, no pcb bending possible since g10 is not screwed itself to the pcb. Painless and easy. Just add a shim so proper contact will be made if your card has a midplate and is not strictly reference design. Not to mention the multitude of install videos on youtube. So there is not just evga bracket and corsair. The best is the 3rd :)

Monitoring software shows that but real limit is 1.261v, measured with dmm. I have the g10 fan hooked to the nvidia led logo output (i bought the wrong adapter capable) so it runs at pretty low rpm. I've got the gelid mini-pwm adapters to run it off the normal header but lazy to take the cards out and install it. The fan will be controlable thru msi afterburner like the normal ref fan after that. The radiator fan is controlled by ai suite / cam+ software if that's the one you meant.

It seems like a serious issue. Might be just company policies preventing them to post untill they come up with an official answer / fix.

For sure. If this damn HG10 would've mounted correctly all of you guys should be well below 60C, using 140mm AIO. I assume you are talking about the overclock.net 425W, 1.271v (1.26v real) Sheyster maxair bios? I am using the same one on my cards and am actually bummed out that the reference design cannot top the 1.261v limit. Maybe i would've got better clocks at 1.3v with a non-ref, this cooler is definately up to the task, i'd say even 1.35v would be possible and running in the mid 60's IMO. I had a bad mount on one card with the x41. Was messing with diff. TIM's so had to mount/unmount them 3 times. The 2nd time i got a bad mount. The screws were not equally tightened I think. I was idling in the 33-34C range and insta shot up to 92-95-throttle/reboot with any 3d loads. If you look on the backside of the kraken you can actually see if they are tightened equally by counting the "grooves" left on the screw and matching with the others (if everything is straight that is :)). BTW: can those thermal pads be removed from the cooler or they are glued crazy? It would be easier to just remove all of them and cover the individual parts of the card. I'm guessing that it will make contact at those R34 capacitors (i think that's what the square, high chips are) so no point putting it on the vrm's, since they sit lower, don't know if bracket is machined to contact those also.

With my old 1.23v bios and 1440mhz oc i was getting 46C max after hours of gta v with maxxed settings @ 1440p, it was definately pushing the gpu's above 90% each. With 1.261v 425w bios and @1490mhz i'm getting 52C max after hours of gaming. My ambient temps are 22-25C range. G10 + X41 kraken is definately under 60C unless you live somewhere very hot and have 32C ambients.

If you don't want to return them and want to mod i'd use a shim. That will raise the contact point and you should be getting the advertised ~50C range at load. They are cheap so a get a couple of different sizes thickness wise and experiment. Granted, one should not have to do any of this, but i know returning things is a huge hassle. I prefer selling at a small loss then waiting 30 days or how much it takes... guess it's more painless in the US but here returns are a bitch.

Looks like those thermal pads are too thick and causing the bend, or something at the back of the cooler from the pics. Damn

Sounds high for 1400mhz. Do you have a custom bios on the card or is that running with stock voltage? I also have 140mm on them and idle at 26/28C, load to 49/51C (after many hours of gaming) @ 1500mhz, 1.261v 425W bios. The gta pic is only after 10mins or so so the temps didn't reach max yet. Stock clocks cards running 40-42C.