- A hundred freaking degrees. - Now that's hot.
- [Man] Yeah. - And not in a good way. What you're looking at right
now is a thermal camera shot of the back of an RTX 3090, and it's got a problem that's
been fairly well-documented by the PC gaming community. The RAM runs as hot as
an Intel MacBook Pro, and that's no joke. Fortunately, we've got a
solution to tame the beast and great news, if you can afford a 3090, then you can probably afford it too. And you can probably also
afford our sponsor, KiwiCo, cause you are mad baller like that. KiwiCo ships out crates that contain hands-on projects for kids to help develop their creative confidence and problem-solving skills. Learn more at the end of this video or at the link down below. (soft music) (upbeat music) Memory, specifically video
memory meeting cooling is nothing new. The electronic components in your PC release nearly 100% of the
electricity they consume as heat. So while many graphics cards have all of their RAM chips on the front, where they can be cooled
by the same heat sink that cools the GPU, we've also seen many
designs over the years that have such a massive
amount of video memory that RAM chips end up being installed on the back of the card as well, and these often required
their own cooling. This usually takes the
form of a metal back plate with a couple of thermal pads
to facilitate the transfer between the chips and the heat sink. Now, obviously a flat piece of aluminum, like most graphics card back plates, isn't the most efficient
heat sink you could design, but, the thing is, RAM chips are relatively
low power consumption at only a couple of watts each making it mostly a non-issue. That is until you make a graphics card with a TDP of 350 watts like an RTX 3090. Specifically for the
purposes of today's test, we're using the Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity. When you've got that
much heat to get rid of in such a small space, the problem is that
it's got to go somewhere and if it's not being removed fast enough it'll soak into anything nearby, like, say for example, memory chips. To add insult to injury, Nvidia switched to the appreciably faster Micron GDDR6X memory for their 3080, and 3090 class GPUs. Now, technically, GDDR6X is more efficient
per bit of data transferred, but due to its faster overall speed, it still results in more
overall power consumption, and therefore more heat. So, you take a hotter running chip and put it in a hotter environment and you end up with what
we showed you in the intro. A bone stock speed RTX 3090
Trinity with surface V RAM temps of over a hundred degrees celsius. And remember guys, this
is a reference board which means that it's the
design that Nvidia provided to their partners like
Zotac, Asus, et cetera, to base their own custom cards off of. Now, this shot here is with
the factory back plate removed which does mean we're hurting the cooling of the rear memory chips a little, but we only did that to give you a visual. Prior to removing the back plate, the memory junction temperatures reported by the graphics card itself we're still in excess of a hundred degrees with thermal camera readings putting the back plate itself at about 90. That sounds really scary, but there's not a lot of
hot cards in the past. Are those temps maybe okay? Well, we don't have a firm
answer from either Nvidia or Micron about the maximum
temps of these chips, but Micron did recently share the zero to 95 degree
operating range of GDDR6X, and according to Igor'sLAB, the maximum is likely somewhere between 105 to 110 degrees celsius, after which the card will
start to thermal throttle, now, then it's time to fix it. The cheap and cheerful way is to swap the factory thermal pads for something with a little more gumption. GPU manufacturers don't always use the highest efficiency
thermal pads and pastes. And it's not always just to cut costs, sometimes it's more about
improving longevity of the paste. Sometimes. But today's video is about something new. Now this looks like a
bog standard water block and, technically, you know, (chuckling) it is. But, it's not meant to cool your GPU in the way that you might think, rather, it goes on the
back of your graphics card like a back plate, but
with active cooling, it's an active back plate. It's really cool, but to be clear, it's more of an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary idea. Back when dual GPU cards existed, we had double blocks that
handled the individual GPUs sometimes on their own separate PCBs, and Aqua Computer actually
built a heat-piped back plate that hooked into their
water block terminal for cooling a 2080 TI. This is just the first time
we've seen it done so elegantly. Now it's not a standalone product, rather it's meant to
be used in combination with one of EK's other
existing water blocks. Just remove the terminal piece of the water block you already have, throw on thermal pads
according to the instructions, and then tighten it all in. It's a little tricky cause you have to line up the holes on both the terminal as well as the back plate, all while squishing it like a stress ball to compress the thermal pads, but, it only took a few minutes. With it all installed, the loop filled with my fancy
water bottle, lttstore.com, it looks pretty freaking cool. Now, I wouldn't bank on being able to use
the slot above the GPU as it's now practically,
entirely blocked, get it? But we could at least
now answer the question of whether it really does fix the problem. With stock cooling, a longterm gaming stress test with F1 2020 left our memory just barely within spec. This is probably good
enough for most people, but it's common knowledge that the lower your temps, the longer your semiconductors will last, and a stress test like Furmark was able to push it out
of that comfort zone, with Ethereum blowing past it. And this is even with
more mining optimized lower power settings, including
running the fans at 100%. Of course, before we recommend going out and buying a $150 back plate, it's worth investigating
if a normal water block is enough to bring the beast
within safe operating temps. In both F1 2020 and Furmark,
we were now well within spec, even with no backplate
on the rear memory chips. Just by removing the heat from the GPU and the front memory
chips a little faster. So, for those of you who exclusively game, you probably don't need
an active back plate, but if you're a crypto miner,
there's still a solid chance that you will end up in the danger zone. Of course, if you rock a 3080 that does not have rear
mounted memory chips, you should be fine. So finally then, with
EK's back plate fitted, our Furmark memory temps
we're a little over half of what they were when
they were air cooled and even the while Ethereum mining, we didn't get anywhere close to what I would consider dangerous. And as an added bonus, the GPU core itself ended up being cooler thanks to the additional contact area on the back of the card. Now, I'm not going to
pretend to be surprised by these results. The active backplate effectively
adds direct water cooling to these couple watt memory
chips on the back of the card, along with a big old hunk of copper to sink the heat off the back of the card. What's more surprising is why this solution even needs to exist. Nvidia is clearly aware of the problem and in typical fashion, silently adjusted the design of their founder's edition cards to include additional thermal pads after igorLAB's initial
report on the memory issues. But, it's also possible that this will not be
an issue going forward with the mining lock that's
expected to be in place on the upcoming 3080 TI, subscribed by the way So
you don't miss our review. And then presumably, on the rest of Nvidia's
products going forward. But then that also assumes
that Nvidia manages to build a mining lock
that actually works. Speaking of circumvention, you can't circumvent this
message from our sponsor. Thanks KiwiCo for
sponsoring today's video. KiwiCo is a monthly subscription service that helps make STEM
topics fun and interactive for kids of all ages. KiwiCo believes that if
you learn small today you can produce world
changing ideas tomorrow, and each month you'll get a themed crate that addresses certain specific topics. Each crate is designed by experts and contains everything
you need to complete it, which means you don't have
to run off to the store to get extra supplies like
glue or scissors, or whatever. The crate we have here is at a kiwi level for kids aged five to eight that teaches programming and robotics. Another one is the Eureka level
for your teens aged 14 plus, that highlights basic
engineering and sound practices. KiwiCo is just a great way to keep your kids occupied for hours and you can check it out
today at kiwico.com/ltt and get 50% off your
first month of any crate. So thanks for watching guys, if you liked this video, maybe check out our RTX 3060 review. It's a much more reasonably
priced graphics card that doesn't need active
backplate cooling, or at least normally it's
more reasonably priced. (laughing in background) Well, what, look, what
do you want from me? - [Man] That You can buy one.
Yea it's effective although I've managed to get down to 80C when mining ETH with a normal water block (Corsair) and a heatsink on the backplate. Even used the Corsair pads. Video showed 76C for mining.
Obviously the water cooled backplate is the better performing and better looking solution though.
And the very next day Zotac announces a water blocked 3090; ironic timing
Ordered everything for the same setup a week ago. Man, Nvidia messed this one up so bad, so I decided to get the active backplate cooled EK Trinity Vector. I'm really hoping I won't see three digits on my temperatures any more.