Overclock.net banner
Cancel
Create thread New Forums

How cool 5090s Backplate (not watercool)

Jump to Latest
1 - 14 of 14 Posts

Menko22

· Registered
Joined
·
861 Posts
Discussion starter · #1 ·
Hi.

I found a few days ago by "luck" how hot it gets the back plate of my GPU. I have a 5090 Astral (air).

I assume a lot of people will have this problem that shorten the life-time of the GPU.

I found a detailed article here from a good website:

www.igorslab.de

Local hotspots on RTX-5000 cards: When board layout and cooling design don’t work together and a pad mod has to help | igor´sLAB

Recently, several current graphics card models in the RTX 5000 series, including the RTX 5080, 5070 (Ti) and 5060 Ti in particular, have shown thermal anomalies in the area of local hotspots on the…
www.igorslab.de www.igorslab.de

The backplate is extremely hot so what its inside the card it's trapped.

Any ideas how we can improve this (air-cooling)?

At the moment it only comes to my mind to put thin thermal pad on the top of the PCB and sit there some aluminium shrimps. Then a fan on top.
Not sure but it might helo for the cold plate (and overall).

Any more ideas?
 
Save
Reply Quote Rep+ Rep+
Discussion starter · #3 ·
Carlyle2020 said:
You´ve already mentioned the best idea:

View attachment 2710161

View attachment 2710162
Slapping an 80mm dual tower air cooler onto the backplate works very well.
Even without the tec that thing got me a few 3dMark top 20 scores.

Good luck!
Click to expand...
It's a good idea.

The back plate of the 5090 Astral is quite large.

Do you know something similar to the CPU tower coolers with bigger contact area?
 
Save
Reply Quote Rep+ Rep+
#4 · (Edited)
All out balls to the wall?

Crazy lunatic "backplate cooler" edition?

Any cpu cooler which is specifically made for Threadripper "TR4" and/or "sTRX4" .

Simply because it has the biggest contact area:
Electronic device Technology Gadget Electronics Machine



My case had vertical challenges so i glued the cooler on.
In a removable kinda way.

I´ve glued another backplate to the gpu backplate
Those 2 holes are for the cooler itself to connect to.

Fan Computer cooling Technology Ventilation Fan Computer hardware

(comes with a removable tec)

That way i´ve sold the gpu without the backplate cooler.

The new owner was thrilled to have a bigger "double" backplate since the card did heat up slower, which made for better benchmarking results.
 
Discussion starter · #5 ·
Carlyle2020 said:
All out balls to the wall?

Crazy lunatic "backplate cooler" edition?

Any cpu cooler which is specifically made for Threadripper "TR4" and/or "sTRX4" .

Simply because it has the biggest contact area:
View attachment 2710179


My case had vertical challenges so i glued the cooler on.
In a removable kinda way.

I´ve glued another backplate to the gpu backplate
Those 2 holes are for the cooler itself to connect to.

View attachment 2710180
(comes with a removable tec)

That way i´ve sold the gpu without the backplate cooler.

The new owner was thrilled to have a bigger "double" backplate since the card did heat up slower, which made for better benchmarking results.
Click to expand...
Good one.

Thermalright SSD cooler hr09 cost 9€ and has a good amount of contatc surface, easily to mod and it has a good hight for P8 max fan.
A couple of this. One on top of the connector and another one in the hottest part near the Vram.
I play games. I don't bench.

Technology Machine Fan Electronic component Circuit Component

Machine Mesh Silver Nickel Titanium

Wire
 
  • Rep+
Reactions: Carlyle2020
Save
Reply Quote Rep+ Rep+
#6 · (Edited)
You can find on aliexpress, aluminium heatsinks. Probably even the size of that GPU, and if nothing fits good enough, at very least 1 of the sellers will be able to make you one to size.
Buy a large one and make the holes yourself and replace the backplate with it. You can also find m2 and m1.5 threaded screws with philips and hex heads. Up to 2cm in lenght.

Also keep in mind, you have a lot of transference area, so you dont really need, heatpipe cooling, thermals paste or any other fancy things in therms of thermal transference. Aluminium thermal transference is more than enough to make a big impact. You just need size or access to airflow, or both.
 
#7 ·
One other mod that i found out it's very helpful with this kind of situations, is RAM fans.
A 2x80mm placed above the ram at 45 degree angle will cool the ram, the plate area of the CPU cooler, the nvme, the vrm of the motherboard and the back of the GPU. It's one big dead zone. Ofc your mileage may vary, depending how great the case cooling is.
 
#8 ·
I just got a 5090 TUF OC waterblock from EK and they have no thermal pads between the backplate and the PCB other than over the 12vhpwr connector. I am thinking of applying TG Putty to give the PCB and components back there some contact. What do you all think?
 
  • Helpful
Reactions: Menko22
Save
Reply Quote Rep+ Rep+
Discussion starter · #9 ·
5mall5nail5 said:
I just got a 5090 TUF OC waterblock from EK and they have no thermal pads between the backplate and the PCB other than over the 12vhpwr connector. I am thinking of applying TG Putty to give the PCB and components back there some contact. What do you all think?
Click to expand...
It's a good idea. Specially in the same spots where the Astral backplate has them.

It should help to dissipate heat.
 
Save
Reply Quote Rep+ Rep+
#10 ·
Menko22 said:
It's a good idea. Specially in the same spots where the Astral backplate has them.

It should help to dissipate heat.
Click to expand...
Any photos of Astral backplate locations?
 
Save
Reply Quote Rep+ Rep+
#14 · (Edited)
Igor’s Lab has not tested RTX 5090 models yet as of my current knowledge. (Referring specifically to AIB versions.) These cards feature two concentrated power delivery zones — one to the left and one to the right of the GPU die and memory areas. You can see the VRM placement in TechPowerUp's ASUS GeForce RTX 5090 Astral OC Review - Astronomical Premium - Circuit Board Analysis | TechPowerUp

Based on my own testing with a PNY RTX 5090, the thermal pads are insufficient for effective heat transfer. I wasn’t able to measure the PCB hotspot directly, as I didn’t want to install the card without the backplate (since the front cooler uses the same mounting screws).

Using a thermal camera from the side, I observed that the VRM area reached around 80°C under heavy load using the Steel Nomad stress test. This is with my card undervolted to 890 mV. The actual PCB hotspot temperature is likely much higher.

I applied Thermal Grizzly Putty Advance on one VRM section, and a 3mm stack of Iceberg thermal pads on the other. Under stress, the backplate in most areas reached ~64°C, including the part with the Iceberg pads. The VRM section with the Grizzly putty approached 80°C, suggesting the PCB underneath would be even hotter — I estimate around 90°C, based on comparisons with images from Igor’s Lab. A non-undervolted card would be even hotter.

I plan to replace the Iceberg pads with thermal putty as soon as it arrives.

Additional notes:
  • The backplate came with a plastic sheet, which I removed around the VRM areas as recommended by Igor’s Lab.
  • Memory modules had preinstalled thermal pads, but they’re largely ineffective — especially since they were stuck to the plastic sheet. I'm leaving them for now since memory temps are stable, and replacing them might backfire (e.g., heat transfer from the now-hot backplate into the memory).
  • I tested a Graugear SSD Heatpipe KĂĽhler (M.2 2280) on the backplate hotspot, but it had little effect. I’m going to try mounting a be quiet! Pure Rock Slim 2 CPU cooler there next, since I already have a spare one on hand.
 
1 - 14 of 14 Posts
About this Discussion
13 Replies
6 Participants
Last post:
Grimmeye
Overclock.net
posts
28M
members
562K
Since
2004
The premier forum for overclocking experts and enthusiasts. Discuss hardware optimization, custom builds, benchmarking, cooling solutions, and pushing the boundaries of computing performance. From beginner guides to extreme overclocking, join our technical community to master system tuning.
Full Forum Listing
Explore Our Forums
Intel CPUs Hardware News NVIDIA PC Gaming Water Cooling