Author: ASRocker
Subject: 970m Pro3 cooling...
Posted: 12 Oct 2016 at 8:28pm
Thanks for your reply![Thumbs Up]( "Thumbs Up")
Well, yes, I always RTFM![LOL]( "LOL")
It helps a lot and most likely prevents the user from becoming the problem.
Meanwhile I got my components and put them together. I'm actually writing from my new system right now. It works absolutely stable so far. Windows 10 setup was fast and without problems. Latest Asrock and AMD drivers are working well also. No issues yet.
The mainboard temperature is 27°C at the moment, and the CPU is idling at around 29°C (my room temperature is at 25°C right now). I already did a stress test; using CPU-Z; which showed that the CPU does not get above 49°C. So my liquid cooler from Artic works quite well I guess. I could touch the VRM heatsink with my finger. However, its temperature was close to the pain threshold. So I guess the temperature was between 50 and 60°C. Not something to be worry about I think. I won't overclock the system anyway, and also, such a stress test is unrealistic since no game will stress all 8 cores to their full extent. I could touch the north bridge and south bridge easily by the way. They stayed warm but did not get hot.
Regarding the ventilation of my system: the liquid cooler is installed behind the front mesh panel of my case. It's the Corsair Carbide SPEC-M2. Corsair did not promise too much. The airflow inside the case is quite remarkable. And I did not even install the two 120mm top fans yet! The four 120mm coolers from my CPU liquid cooler are pulling fresh air through the front of the case, onto 2/3 of the mainboard (north bridge & south bridge and lower part of the VRM heatsink included) and to the graphics card and hard drives as well. The air is then pulled out by the rear fan. This creates a decent amount of airflow. I'm sure that adding the two 120mm fans at the top will cool the entire system properly. Probably it will do it better than by just adding a top blow CPU cooler. Such a cooler does actually only push the "used" (e.g. warm) air from the heatsink directly onto the mainboard... does it really make sense?
My graphics card is a Sapphire Radeon RX 460 Nitro (4GB) by the way. It's a nice card but I bought it just for transition. I will resell it and buy the Sapphire Radeon RX 470 Nitro+ (4GB) next month...
I have read many negative reviews and opinons of this mainboard and Asrock. But my conclusion is that in most cases the problem is not the board but the user. People seam to overclock like crazy, and then being surprised and not really aware that they literally destroyed their system. For example, one guy stated that the mainboard is not stable and quit working after a few weeks. At the end of his review he mentioned in one short sentence that he could overclock his CPU "only" to 4.4 GHz on this board stably... One other person stated that the sound quality is bad. But it's just as perfect as on my previous MSI Z77 G43 LGA 1155 board (sound quality also depends on the used speakers/headsets...).
All I can say for now is, that this new system just works as fast and as stable as my previous old i7 MSI system. I switched back to AMD and Asrock due to budget considerations. The only thing I was worried about are the temperatures on AMD. But it doesn't seem to be an issue as long as cooling is sufficient and overclocking is not a consideration.
I will report more once I did intense gaming for hours...
Subject: 970m Pro3 cooling...
Posted: 12 Oct 2016 at 8:28pm
Thanks for your reply
Well, yes, I always RTFM
It helps a lot and most likely prevents the user from becoming the problem.Meanwhile I got my components and put them together. I'm actually writing from my new system right now. It works absolutely stable so far. Windows 10 setup was fast and without problems. Latest Asrock and AMD drivers are working well also. No issues yet.
The mainboard temperature is 27°C at the moment, and the CPU is idling at around 29°C (my room temperature is at 25°C right now). I already did a stress test; using CPU-Z; which showed that the CPU does not get above 49°C. So my liquid cooler from Artic works quite well I guess. I could touch the VRM heatsink with my finger. However, its temperature was close to the pain threshold. So I guess the temperature was between 50 and 60°C. Not something to be worry about I think. I won't overclock the system anyway, and also, such a stress test is unrealistic since no game will stress all 8 cores to their full extent. I could touch the north bridge and south bridge easily by the way. They stayed warm but did not get hot.
Regarding the ventilation of my system: the liquid cooler is installed behind the front mesh panel of my case. It's the Corsair Carbide SPEC-M2. Corsair did not promise too much. The airflow inside the case is quite remarkable. And I did not even install the two 120mm top fans yet! The four 120mm coolers from my CPU liquid cooler are pulling fresh air through the front of the case, onto 2/3 of the mainboard (north bridge & south bridge and lower part of the VRM heatsink included) and to the graphics card and hard drives as well. The air is then pulled out by the rear fan. This creates a decent amount of airflow. I'm sure that adding the two 120mm fans at the top will cool the entire system properly. Probably it will do it better than by just adding a top blow CPU cooler. Such a cooler does actually only push the "used" (e.g. warm) air from the heatsink directly onto the mainboard... does it really make sense?
My graphics card is a Sapphire Radeon RX 460 Nitro (4GB) by the way. It's a nice card but I bought it just for transition. I will resell it and buy the Sapphire Radeon RX 470 Nitro+ (4GB) next month...
I have read many negative reviews and opinons of this mainboard and Asrock. But my conclusion is that in most cases the problem is not the board but the user. People seam to overclock like crazy, and then being surprised and not really aware that they literally destroyed their system. For example, one guy stated that the mainboard is not stable and quit working after a few weeks. At the end of his review he mentioned in one short sentence that he could overclock his CPU "only" to 4.4 GHz on this board stably... One other person stated that the sound quality is bad. But it's just as perfect as on my previous MSI Z77 G43 LGA 1155 board (sound quality also depends on the used speakers/headsets...).
All I can say for now is, that this new system just works as fast and as stable as my previous old i7 MSI system. I switched back to AMD and Asrock due to budget considerations. The only thing I was worried about are the temperatures on AMD. But it doesn't seem to be an issue as long as cooling is sufficient and overclocking is not a consideration.
I will report more once I did intense gaming for hours...