Last year, I bought the MSI 5700 xt Evoke OC, which was the faster graphics card in my price range. I didn't do my due diligence, however, and later learned that MSI cut corners with this card by not putting full sized thermal pads on the memory chips. This beast has always run a little hot, and the fan is loud as hell over sixty percent. Considering the current GPU market, where a budget card like the rx 570 is going for 460 on amazon, and anything more powerful is either one-thousand dollars or out of stock, I thought I'd mod my card. Gamers' Nexus did a good video on this subject which I used as a reference, as well as a couple reddit posts.
Taking apart the card was pretty simple, there are only six front screws on top and a three holding the i/o plate together. The fan connector isn't difficult to remove if you use a pair of needle nosed pliers. Once you take the cooler off, you'll see the pcb. Here's a picture cribbed from TechPowerup. You can see that the pads on most of the chips are just a little too small, except for the front two memory chips, which only cover about forty percent of the chip. That's why this card runs so hot and why the fans are so noisy.
I mistakenly bought a 30 x 30 x 2 mm thermal pad, which only gave me enough material to replace three of the pads. With what I had left, I cut thin strips that I put next to the remaining pads, completely covering the memory chips. I removed the old thermal paste from the GPU chip with a microfiber cloth and then replaced the paste with Thermal Grizzly compound, a high-quality solution that's probably better than whatever MSI used. When I put the card back together, I used M3 plastic washers on the four screws that mount the heatsink to the GPU. These washers help apply more pressure, since the added pads will make it hard to keep the card together. According to the internet, if your hotspot/junction temperatures are really high (I would assume that value would be 110 Celsius since that's the value that the card starts throttling) then you need to tighten the screws, although you always run the risk of overtightening and damaging your card. Modding is not without risks! I didn't have any problems, though. I think the washers work well.
As far as testing goes, I haven't had a whole lot of time, but I've immediately seen results. Before, after undervolting to 1000 millivolts and underclocking to 1900 Mhz, my gpu temps would climb to 80 degrees quickly with a custom fan curve usually maxed out at 70 percent fan speed. My memory temps usually stayed around 86 to 88 degrees, while the hotspot usually reached 108 to 110 Celsius. Now, using the same underclock/undervolt, after 12 minutes of playing Red Dead Redemption 2, my GPU temp was 61 degrees, the memory stayed at 68, and the hotspot was a cool 74 degrees. At stock clock (2150 Mhz) and voltage (1100 millivolts), my GPU hit 73 degrees, memory hit 80, and the junction a toaster but still ok 96 degrees. 23 minutes of Doom Eternal at stock specs and 60 percent fan speed produced a 75 degree GPU temp, 82 memory, and 97 degrees for the hotspot. This is a massive improvement, and proof that MSI cut corners on their 400 dollar graphics card, which makes me reconsider ever buying an MSI product again. However, this mod was actually pretty fun to do. My graphics card is finally able to run at its advertised speed without the fan at 100 percent. So if you bought this card or have an opportunity to do so at a decent price (you won't), definitely swap out the thermal pads. It's worth it.
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