Very hard to cool down an Radeon R9 Nano

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W0lfy

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2 years ago I bought an XFX Radeon R9 Nano for 250 pounds as it was above the GTX 1060 6GB performance and in some games, it was the same as GTX 1070. At 1440p the performance has been good for me, around 60 FPS. But the heat has always been hard to dissipate, stay between 80 and 85 C and spinning the fans around 52% at 2700 RPMs, it's noticeably audible when I play games. I would like to keep it cooler and a bit quieter.

The issue I noticed with the card is its thermal design. The fin stacks on the radiator are all oriented parallel with the PCI Express connector, aka from the PCI bracket to the back end of the card. Massive amounts of heat are being pushed inside the case through the back end of the card. The case I have is Thermaltake Core G3 with a 240mm AIO mounted at the front (I have 4 120mm fans in push-pull setup), I love the size and the look of the case, as well as the vertical mounting of the GPU. But I can't even put the side panel on because the GPU heats up to 85 C, ramps the fan above 2800 RPM and lowers the clock to under 900 MHz. I changed the thermal paste on the die but it didn't help all that much.

I have been thinking of getting a better case but the more I think about the design of the GPU the harder it is to find what would work. I have to use the front of the case as an exhaust else the GPU will either fight intake air with its hot exhaust or recycle the hot exhaust onto the GPU itself. The GPU needs cold intake air but that can be done only from the bottom of the case, but almost all cases these days have the PSU at the bottom. And the card is so small that even if the case had bottom fan mounts if the fans are not directly bellowing the GPU then the intake won't reach it.

I don't want to change my GPU, AMD Radeon 480/580 do not perform as this card does and the AMD Radeon Vega 54/64 are still expensive, at least for how much I could pay for them. I'm not going back to nVidia.

Are there any cases that would help me solve this airflow problem, budget up to 100 pounds (including the budget for extra fans).

I don't have my CPU OCed yet but I do want to push it to at least 4.5 GHz so that's extra heat I need to account for as well.
 
get a normal case with good airflow. also, 85c is normal for the card, its working as designed. you could play with a custom fan curve in afterburner or something to increase it but the case/side panel is the real issue.

edit: that case is meant for full custom water cooling/
 
I've thought of throwing one one of those in a small ITX case before.

Ideally, you'd have a 120mm high airflow fan directed at it in the orientation of its fin stack.

If possible you could duct a fan directly where you need that airflow to go.

Also, if needed you may consider making your AIO an exhaust instead of an intake. Your AIO is definitely contributing to the temperatures of your gpu and case interior.

That said, always make sure to have some kind of intake feeding fresh air into your case. You certainly don't want passively cooled components to be starved for air.

Also, if the clearance between the windowed side panel and vertically mounted GPU fan are not great enough, you will experience higher thermals than in a normal configuration.
 
I am trying to find a replacement case but its difficult to find one that has bottom mounts for fans instead of PSU mount or PSU shroud. I would make the bottom and read intakes and front exhaust.
 
W0lfy said:
I am trying to find a replacement case but its difficult to find one that has bottom mounts for fans instead of PSU mount or PSU shroud. I would make the bottom and read intakes and front exhaust.
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a bottom front intake is just as good as a bottom mount and usually quieter. or move up to a matx case for some proper cooling.
 
Its a bit pricey but i bought a corsair air 740. Has dual compartments so on the main side you can have fans surrounding components
 
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