Adding VRM Cooling To Gigabyte AB350 Gaming 3 Motherboard

[vm2707]

Hi everyone,

I just recently built a Ryzen system with a Ryzen 1700 CPU and Gigabyte AB350 Gaming 3 mobo. I am trying to get a decent 3.8-3.9 Ghz overclock out of this chip while keeping temperatures reasonably cool. I am using a Noctua NH-D15 to cool the CPU and it indeed does a great job keeping the CPU cool. However, I've read that the Gigabyte AB350 Gaming 3 has poor VRM cooling, which concerns me. Specifically, the top VRMs for CPU NB don't have heatsinks on them at all, while the ones on the side do have a heatsink on them, but maybe it's not very good quality? Moreover, I've read that the ab350 boards were designed with the stock Wraith Spire cooler in mind that blows air over the VRMs. With an aftermarket cooler, like the D15 I have, VRM temps are going to be higher I suppose. There's a pic of the VRM configuration on this board a little down the page here: http://www.modders-inc.com/gigabyte-ab350-gaming-3-motherboard-review-fun-flexibility/2/


Anyway, I am thinking of buying some MOSFET heatsinks and thermal pads to stick on the mobo's VRMs. I would like to get some advice on how I should do this, as I have never done this before. Specifically, should I also remove the stock heatsink over the VRMs on the side and add the aftermarket pads + heatsinks, or will covering just the top, exposed VRMs be adequate?

Thanks in advance.

 

[vm2707]

Bump. With the CPU clocked at 3.8 Ghz at 1.35v, I am hitting about 67 Celsius max on the CPU, while the VRMs are cookin' at 115 Celsius. That's after a couple iterations of Intel Burn In Test on maximum setting.

 

[Seanie280672]

Bump. With the CPU clocked at 3.8 Ghz at 1.35v, I am hitting about 67 Celsius max on the CPU, while the VRMs are cookin' at 115 Celsius. That's after a couple iterations of Intel Burn In Test on maximum setting.

stick a small fan over them for now whilst your stress testing, your system will crash if they hit 125oC, they'll never get this hot again in everyday tasks, so once you've hit your overclock limits and your're stable, you can remove the fan.

The top set of mosfet's dont need a heatsink on them, they are just your SoC voltage mosfet's, and dont get that hot, its the ones at the back with the heatsink already on them that are cooking.

 

[vm2707]

Bump. With the CPU clocked at 3.8 Ghz at 1.35v, I am hitting about 67 Celsius max on the CPU, while the VRMs are cookin' at 115 Celsius. That's after a couple iterations of Intel Burn In Test on maximum setting.

stick a small fan over them for now whilst your stress testing, your system will crash if they hit 125oC, they'll never get this hot again in everyday tasks, so once you've hit your overclock limits and your're stable, you can remove the fan.

The top set of mosfet's dont need a heatsink on them, they are just your SoC voltage mosfet's, and dont get that hot, its the ones at the back with the heatsink already on them that are cooking.

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, I realize that IBT is probably stressing the system way more than most regular apps will, so I can expect unrealistically high temps with IBT.

BTW, also just ran IBT @ maximum for 6 cycles with Unigine Heaven on an OC'ed GTX1070 running at the same time with my CPU at 3.7@ 1.25v and max CPU temp was 62 oC, while max VRM temp was 98 oC during this stress test as reported by HWiNFO64. Seems like this may be a safer 24/7 overclock than 3.8 @ 1.35 then. I'll see if I can maybe manage stable 3.8 OC at a lower vcore... But will probably just stick with 3.7. May as well just switch back to the stock cooler then as the D15 seems way overkill for the 1700 @ 3.7. lol