Gadgetory

we've been working with EVGA for a few days on troubleshooting GT X 1080 FTW vrm heat issues including independent validation of EVGA x' two solutions for owners of affected cards that article was posted last night you can see it on the screen here or hit the link in the description below for the full thing and the article included thermal images and testing of cards with and without thermal pads as well as cards with and without the V BIOS update we'll be recapping all of that here before getting to that this content is brought to you by and the free sync devices including this $400 LG 34 um 68 - P ultra wide display which is a 2560 by 1080 display you can learn more in the link below if you're not sure what's going on we've got two articles one of them recaps the issue basically Tom's Hardware in Germany Tom's de found that some of the EVGA cards they were testing the 1080 FTW in the case of what we're validating we're hitting temperatures around 114 C when looking at the back of the card and that's for the vrm temperature specifically vrm is by the way can sustain pretty high temperatures so we'll talk about if it's good or not in a moment but it's not the same as a GPU where your limit is really like a hundred Celsius or something around that range so Tom's saw that we posted an article recapping the issue we spoke with builds IDE an overclocker to talk about the BRM and what it's capable of and now just last night published an article that looks at the thermals using thermal imaging of a card with out a solution so this is the stock card that shipped originally no thermal pads between the back plate and the back of the card and and no thermal pads where they were added with the fix which is this version that's got a thermal pad mod to it and we also looked at some V bio stuff so with Tom's article they saw of erm temperatures up to around 114 CV Ram was also pretty high and this was a result of EVGA s decision to skip thermal pads for some of their cards affected cards are shown on the screen now and all of these are also applicable to receive a V BIOS update or free thermal pad mod from EVGA well talk about this more an hour testing peace but first note that the vrm can handle well over 100 C in worst case scenarios t-junction of EVGA SBR M is about 150 C with ambient at 125 C the power stages are recommended at 100 C by on semi in their datasheet so that is directly from the supplier or a 125 C T case still hitting 114 Celsius is really approaching a fine line where poor conditions could trip a runaway thermal scenario especially since the backplate was effectively acting as a hot box before applying thermal pads the backplate in the base plate were mostly just trapping heat with no interface to transfer the build-up from the power stages or FETs to the heatsink itself but we've got builds or joining us in a few days to talk about this in greater depth and I'm currently running endurance tests on the 1080 FTW with and without thorough pads and we'll be doing so in both torture and real-world scenarios will be using poor airflow cases also for further validation and the goal is to determine whether or not the EVGA 1080 FTW was ever at risk of burning its power delivery system EVGA a solution has been to supply free thermal pads to users to either apply themselves or they can do a swap with EVGA to get them applied or a new card from EVGA if they're really concerned but when I talked to EVGA steam last night we were also informed that the company will be applying a BIOS update and this BIOS update doesn't change anything other than the fan speed curve the fan rpm so these fans will spend more aggressively with that update instead of an RPM of around 1600 to 1700 in for example a high load scenario fir mark or a game where you're basically hitting about a 55% maybe 60% fan speed instead of that fan speed of around 1700 the new update for the cards will push the fans beat to 2200 rpm which is a pretty decent increase really so we've got thermal testing I've imaged these cards and I also did a noise test to see how that rpm change impacts the performance and we're able to test both of these cards with and without the backplate so we'll go into all that stuff now because our temperature measurements are through the back of the PCB the actual temperature may be a few degrees higher on the front side where the vrm is we use the thermal to probe some of the vrm components directly and saw a delta of about 4 to 5 Celsius against the rear side measurement here are two side-by-side thermal images of EB J's 1080 FTW vrm close up with the max temperature indicators on the screen as taken at an ambient of 22 Celsius the left image is before EVGA z' bios update the right images after the bios update with a more aggressive fan rpm and this is without the thermal pads applied yet anyway between the two we're seeing a difference of about 14 Celsius results and of the jump from 1600 1700 to 2200 rpm and this brings the vrm temperature down to well within reasonable operating range remember they can run hotter than other silicon components that you're used to and it's still warmer than some competition but certainly not overheating the fan speed change will bring the ACX cooled 1080 FTW cards down well under maximum safe specification once coupled with the thermal pads especially but the new fan speed will curve to hit 2200 rpm or a jump to about 80 percent of total fan speed of using afterburner and precision from the original about 60% max 65 for generally 60 we've performed initial DB testing to look at the change in noise output versus the fan rpm the test platform used for this noise test used all passive cooling the CPU and power spider passively cooled in an open-air test bench with no fans attached the only device making noise was this video card and the noise floor of the room is about 26 DB and has already been accounted for in these metrics test methodologies to find more heavily in our GP reviews on the website that will outline at all in more detail in the next article that research is this stuff a bit more heavily noises at about 30 8.6 DB for the GTX 980 FTW before the V BIOS mod when the vrm was much hotter in the fan speed was lower and so the fan was Auto controlled its peak around 1600 rpm in this test scenario the post v bios change simulated based on EB J's direct advice to G n by simply changing the fan rpm to 2200 manually is at forty 7.1 DB or a perceived increase to the user that is just shy of a 2x and gain in volume we'll talk more about noise levels and the have increased shortly in the next content again once we've got more time to really test the cards with hidden enclosures and in the open-air bench this final look is another side by side thermal image this time with the GTX tennety FTW with thermal pads installed and the original fan speed on one side versus thermal pads installed and the new fan speed update on the other side so you've basically got both solutions here or just one of them with the thermal pads just installing the thermal pads and leaving the fan and BIOS alone temperature is close to 85 Celsius when probes through the backplate but a direct thermocouple probe to the PCB shows us closer to 90 Celsius still has a significant reduction from the original stock model of the card and with both applied we're nearing ADC on the backside which is pretty damn good overall and actually becoming competitive with Twin Frozr in two other coolers so as always we'll have more depth in the article below it's already published it's basically this stuff just with a bit more text around it to explain what's going on I am working on actively doing some more tests we and Darren's tested one of these cards already need to do the other need to do a couple torture tests and mitx or poor airflow ATX cases things like that so we'll be back subscribe to make sure you catch the next version the next look for this couple part series where I'm gonna be joined by builds Lloyd will talk about the VR and what its capabilities are things like that but so far EVGA solutions are looking good so these changes they've made adjust the fan update alone is pretty helpful but you do get a big noise increase so I would recommend taking their free thermal pads because you don't have to pay for it they'll ship them to you you apply it yourself we will be filming today so by the time you see this it'll be just hours away we'll be filming a tutorial on how to install those thermal pads it's pretty easy but if you're uncomfortable EVGA will do it for you or they can even do a basically across RMA exchange where they ship you a card as yours is going back to them so you're not out of a card for too long so that's the news that's what's going on with EB J's cards more in the near future as always subscribe for more content patreon link in the postal video hit that if you want to help us directly by supporting us monthly and links in the description below I'll see you all next time