We're modding the 3090 Ti Strix from AIO to Custom Water Cooling

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Music / Credits:
Outro:
Dylan Sitts feat. HDBeenDope - For The Record (Dylan Sitts Remix)
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Paid content in this video:
- /
Samples:
- RTX 3090 Ti Strix LC
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Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:51 ASUS ROG Strix LC GeForce RTX 3090 Ti OC
2:48 PCB overview
3:51 The cooler
5:11 Coolingblock
6:29 The plan for the modification
7:24 3D-Printing
7:42 3D-printed custom cooler
9:46 Acrylic custom cooler
11:55 The custom cooler is almost ready
15:46 Testrun
17:27 Temps & Noise
19:20 OC & Conclusion
21:46 Outro

[@Tephra]

Love stuff like this. Fairly in-depth, weird, custom projects with niche and/or top end hardware. Kind of rare content in the sea of incredibly generic PC builds.

[@der8auer-en]

Thanks 😬

[@tompayne4945]

Well said. I appreciate that Roman retains an aesthetic level while modding as well. It's nice to see an engineer doing in depth mods rather than GN Steve butchering thousands worth of top end gear!

[@Calango741]

Agreed!

[@vohoangson5792]

this content worth every second!

[@supaaznjigga]

@@tompayne4945 LOL!!

[@InfraredVisuals]

The custom acrylic GPU water block looks slick. 🤤

[@weetjewatikwil1]

Noice

[@chrisB_OG]

oh hell yeah

[@TheChocolateGoat]

Always impressed by the quality of your machining and your patience to make all of those prototypes before getting to the final piece, awesome work!!

[@Pointern]

Love this kinds of videos ! the craftmanship on the 3dprint demo and the acrylic block is soo cool !

[@JustinAlexanderBell]

I would love to see all the CAD/CAM work on this. The final product looks great.

[@edlebrock3501]

Love this type of content! Honestly my favorite types of videos to watch. I would LOVE to see this mod done in a full build, with the built in lighting and VRM fan still operational. One step better would be to see it installed in a custom rigid tube build in the O11D-E. Take care, please give us more on this card and mod!

[@RaspberryRip]

The CNC work on the acrylic is mesmerising. Wonderful video. Thank you.

[@xXDarthBagginsXx]

That little creation reminds me of the old "Snail" blocks that EK made 10yrs ago for the 5**-6** series GPU's. This is awesome and love seeing the process you went through - amazing work as always man - also have been training for your Keyboard challenge from back in the day lol.

[@WolfHowl71]

All your work is incredible! I always wish I was as skilled as you. Thanks for sharing.

[@ivovass195]

With the right skills and access to some serious cnc mashines one can make custom mods like this indeed, very cool stuff, well done

[@lynxg4641]

Really great project Roman, really nice job on that block, very cool to see the water flow and dead spots. Have to admit to being jealous of your nice "toys" at your disposal to do fun projects like this, must be so much fun to know you can take on stuff like this without worrying if you have the right "tools".

[@organicmetal6850]

Very nice work Roman !!! That's a good looking block !

[@nonchalanto]

This is my favorite kind of content from you. Awesome video!

[@bASICMiner]

good vid dude- informative and interesting! even answered some questions that arose in my mind during parts of the video... I always like watching your content. thanks.

[@AliasWilson]

Such beautiful work... keep up the good work

[@yungg1799]

First time watching someone dismantling AIO. As someone who's fairly new to pc building, I always intrigued with the enthusiast side of it. Really appreciate your video, keep it up man!

[@chrisB_OG]

so cooool!! I really enjoyed watching this video. I just got this card and put it in the Vetroo Pangolin case, a case which looks cool but is more like a high school art project than a well-designed product. Definitely keeping the stock AIO. I disassembled the build and will ask my artist buddy to custom paint the case... after I replace flimsy rivets with nuts and screws. I appreciate this video to see what the card can do and what it looks like inside! ty

[@joker927]

Wow this was so interesting. It must be so fun to have access to these manufacturing tools.

[@mentalplayground]

3090 @ 75% Power is perfect for video production. Must love that 24G VRAM

[@twizz420]

You have THE dream job. Messing around with computers, overclocking, and making a ton of money doing so. Sign me up for that gig!

[@jasonmajere2165]

I like how you make it look all so casual.

[@rafchambers3651]

Another brilliant video. Thanks once again for the great content.

[@razamadaz3417]

Beautiful piece of engineering, really enjoyable to watch.

[@prorataxns8425]

When I get up for work at 5am and I sit down for breakfast and this video went up 38 minutes ago. What a treat! 😁

[@FeguerFineArt]

Great video, I love this stuff!

[@cyberwomble7524]

That was immensely satisfying. And there was a bonus kitty.

[@theyehsohz]

I’m glad you went through the effort instead of chopping off the tubing/radiator and replacing just that.

[@der8auer-en]

Yea I felt like leaving a pump in the way is kind of wrong 🤣

[@flushroyal970]

@@der8auer-en Do you think if we left pump in there and make custom watercooler, that pump would into a generator and maybe power some RGB lights with that ? Maybe ?

[@xNiiRUx]

that is so beautiful. i love watching cnc and laser cutting anyway but when it producing something this aesthetically pleasing is pure joy.

[@der8auer-en]

thanks you!

[@BBWahoo]

I love watching consensual non consent as well >;)

[@floodo1]

I love these kind of videos. Thanks

[@TheGroundedCoffee]

I haven't seen a der8auer episode in a while and I just now notice the sick sleeve on Roman!

[@martinw245]

Err... yes but look at DDR6X Junction Temp. My 3090 is at 92 degrees. This setup in the video 42! The 3090ti, not having the memory chips on the back side, plus a nice job with the DIY block, seems to work wonders. Something tells me Nvidia shouldn't have been dumb enough to put DDR6X on the back of other 30 series cards.

[@N0N0111]

And proven again, solid copper heatsink for GDDR is the best solution. Thermal pads are not worth it anymore, these high power usage chips degrade them super quick.

[@martinw245]

@@N0N0111 "And proven again, solid copper heatsink for GDDR is the best solution. Thermal pads are not worth it anymore" Well, yes, but pads are still used between the copper block and heat sink for the GDDR6X on the AIO Ti. In the video he still used them. The Ti doesn't have memory chips on the backplate side of the card where they aren't cooled properly which helps. The mystery is that the 3080 doesn't have DDR6X on the backplate side but is still very hot. Clearly removing the chips on the backplate side plus another factor is responsible for the lower temp. Maybe the latest DDR6X generates less heat. Certainly true that copper is far superior to inefficient thermal pads. The copper shim mod on the 3090 where you replace the DDR6X pads with thermal paste and copper shims makes a huge difference. "these high power usage chips degrade them super quick." That's not what I've found. My EVGA FTW3 3090 was at 90 degrees DDR6X Junction Temp under load straight out of the box. That's what most people find.

[@DLTX1007]

@@martinw245 Or at least being a waterblock helps. Do the air cooled 3090 tis also exhibit anything other than 90 degrees?

[@martinw245]

@@DLTX1007 All or almost all 3080 and 3090's are high 80's to 90's. Crypto miners freak out because they can hit 110 degrees and throttle. I came across one individual that claimed he was seeing 70's with the same card as me, which doesn't make much sense really. Nobody else does. Regarding air cooled 3090 Ti, nope, from what I've seen no issue with junction temp. The lack of chips under the backplate and some other factor seems to have mitigated the issue. Inside the air cooled 3090 Ti they don't look much diferent to the non Ti, which is why I'm wondering if the new batch of GDR6X is cooler, or perhaps no longer from Micron. I actually contacted EVGA re my 3090 FTW3 and they said 90's is high but didn't regard it as an issue unless it hits 110 and throttles. All they care about of course is getting past the warranty period. What it actually means long term for GDDR6X in terms of longevity is a bit of a mystery. I contacted Micron out of interest, given its their memory, and enquired regarding longevity... they ignored me. Jayx2Cents dropped the temp a useful amount with better pads, others have too. I managed to drop junction temp with Gelid pads under the backplate which made a slight diference. The best mod though is the copper shim mod. I'm not too bothered for my 3090 as I have a 5 year warranty and will probably change the card by then. But I'd certainly say its an issue that nvidia didn't account for properly. It's a bit weird when GPU temp is in the 60's but it's the memory in the 90's representing the temp issue.

[@twizz420]

@@N0N0111 Thermal pads don't "degrade", and they still have to be used anyways. I don't know where you get the idea that the copper plate is making direct contact with the memory...

[@jamesalbarran1290]

Nice work !

[@robynd6138]

the thing i dont like about aio cooling is that the life of the pump is usually shorter than the gpu and once its gone you pretty much have a useless gpu unless they make aftermarket waterblocks for these cards.

[@igotzpotatoaim520]

freaking awesome! I need to get into 3d printing man!

[@thumbwarriordx]

The 3090 makes perfect sense... as a professional card like the Titan. I don't know what gamers or even streamers buying them were thinking.

[@MiesvanderLippe]

It’s a great content piece and ensures no GPU bottleneck. Why not? It’s a business expense.

[@TAP7a]

@@MiesvanderLippe that's the thing, if they're using it to make money, it just depends on what their payback time is and if they're happy with that time. It's a very very very stupid card to buy exclusively for yourself, but if you're happy with only paying it off slowly it's at least not completely insane for a streamer to get it. Makes much more sense in a workstation for rendering workloads regardless.

[@LucasMp]

Considering how visibly bent that plate is, it would be cool to see what happens temperature wise if you lapped it 😉

[@tresnugget]

Imagine what it would be like to have the ability to do this stuff. Der8auer, you are living the dream.

[@jd31068]

incredible work, it looked like there was a tiny tornado in the top chamber in the dead-zone you pointed out.

[@Bloodline2009]

Wow that's some next level stuff Roman. Wonder what the 4000 series is gonna do in terms of power consumption. Great video thanks!

[@GrimnirLaguz28]

This is exactly why I am subbed to the channel...Kind of weird, maybe unnecessary mods and testing, but it is still really cool. Same as watching people fiddle around with super-cars.

[@agentcrm]

I like AIO cards, for putting them in friends systems. Those that aren't going to go custom loop but want something quieter. Good to see they're using standard fan headers. I love the CNC work.

[@98f5]

nice work. i have this card and was wondering about this.

[@wazaagbreak-head6039]

I'd love to see a graph showing power usage over frame rate and a comparison drawn between the likes of this and 3080s. Curious how much efficiency is lost

[@twizz420]

If you're worried about your power bill I don't understand why you would be wasting money on a 3090 Ti in the first place... If you want performance without a big bill then go with AMD. The 6900XT only consumes about 300w which is about 50w less than the 3090 and almost 30w less than the 3080. Oh, and the 6900XT is also nearly half the price of the 3090 AND performs better in games. The trifecta - performance, efficiency, and bang-for-buck. And I'm not just saying this because I'm an AMD fanboy. I have a 1070 ti Cerberus. But if you're looking for a top-end card, it should be a no-brainer.

[@supaaznjigga]

this is exactly what I was looking for!

[@wazaagbreak-head6039]

@@twizz420 If I wanted a top end card AMD's absurdly over driven chips is not where I'd be looking, AMD circuit design is dreadful

[@twizz420]

​@@wazaagbreak-head6039 What are you even talking about... Are you reverse-engineering the entire circuit? No? Then what the hell does that have to do with anything? And over-driven? How do you figure? Last time I checked it was the people with 3070s, 3080's and 3090s who were having to put their power slider at 70% just to keep it from crashing in games.

[@wazaagbreak-head6039]

@@twizz420 Overdriven as in AMD has and always will use artificially high voltages to eek out that performance, the savings you have come at a cost. And the power usage differences are attributed to architecture not design, in the next generations ALL components will see a marked rise in power usage as it is one of the only ways left we have to dramatically increase performance as we approach theoretical maximums for just how small we can make shit. And what does it have to do with it? Longevity to begin with.

[@saikrishankumar]

Thank you for the enjoyable videos, my regards to the adorable kitties 😻😻

[@thibautsnoeijs]

This could be a comment on PH lol

[@justinbouchard]

that diaphragm covering the fins is fantastic. very similar to what is used in carburetors

[@danbrit9848]

there are two types of ppl nowadays those that love art or those that love stats ...the rare few are those that land outside the list ...keep up the amazing work

[@DrZmesky]

The block is really really nice

[@miguelfernandez2325]

Well done congrats.

[@georgem.6136]

Roman is a bad ass machinist! Really cool!

[@Nobe_Oddy]

You are a GENIUS!!!!!! This is just AMAZING stuff you do... ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!!!! You are BY FAR my FAVORITE PC MODDer!!! THANK YOU for taking us along for the journey! I cannot wait to see what you do next!!!! Did you do this same thing with the 6900XT AIO?? If not, then you should... I'm gonna go look back through your vids to see. :)

[@Make-Asylums-Great-Again]

I read this screaming the randomly capitalized words. 👌

[@Schuck.]

Awesome stuff, The time and effort you put into doing these mods is appreciated, but as we don't all have to access to 3d printers, CNC etc, Would it be possible to use the original water pump housing with the internals removed in a custom loop?

[@Pholiage]

I saw a video of the Aorus 3090Ti Extreme. That used what looked like a FE board with a copper plate touching both the memory and vrms. It came with a 360 rad instead of 240 and had similar temps to this custom job

[@NassayA1337]

Very impressive to see what you made with all the cool toys at your disposal. Enjoyed it very much. You talked about the 6800xt/6900xt lc from Asus. Would the mod be exactly the same to those cards? And for those who do not have the same toys as you be able to purchase the mod from your store?

[@TMProjection]

quick question, i also want to modify my 3090 TI Strix LC but all i want to do is switch the 240mm radiator/fans for a 360 one (as for the build im having is 2 360 AIO's its not going to be a custom loop, just 2 AIO's, one for GPU, one for CPU my question is, what are the fittings on the END of the tubes of the stock 3090 TI LC, not at the water block thats on the GPU, but on the radiator itself

[@MannyGonzalez]

Great video

[@goodgoyim9459]

​ @der8auer EN What QD fittings are those connected to the GPU. are they higher/same flow as koolance QD4s?

[@kyrne2300]

this video was incredible

[@toonnut1]

Pure class!

[@NoizeeFreed]

Would MSLA printing also be an option instead of milling the acrilic part? I have seen people print transparent valves with threads that are on the same complexity level as this acrilic part.

[@dodgydruid]

Back in the day of the 9800GTX I had a dual circuit water system on my gaming rig mounted in an Antec Skeleton, for the video card I modified an Alphacool RAM cooling kit which used these really thin pipes and cooling blocks from a manifold which also supplied the GPU main block which I used a NB/SB block to cool as GPU water cooling kits were horrendously expensive and I already had a 240w Peltier on the CPU circuit side and that computer barely made it above freezing it was so efficient.

[@M0nsterRipper]

@der8auer EN I have a question cause i wanted to do it for a long time can you get a GPU Block and get an AIO lets say the MSI MAG CoreLiquid or the Raijintek EOS that have the pump in the rad and make a "AIO" but with a full GPU block ?

[@michaelthompson9798]

16:24 Shiek is such a beautiful cat 🐈 🥰🥰🥰 Oh yes Derbauer, your video was impressive too 🙄😜🥰👍🤩

[@ryancarter7655]

Is there any chance to buy something like this? Trying to find a custom loop solution for my build with a 3090 ti kingpin

[@craniumbox]

Do you sell the 3d files for this build? Or will you sell the parts themselves?

[@steviebro0538]

A point to note, if I want a 12L case that can support multiple AIOs or a custom loop system and I'm brand new to building, which route would I want to go down then?

[@HiltonHeslop]

Hey man, hope you are well. So you can refill the old AIO, Easy way: I submerge radiator in a container of coolant with inlet tube disconnected ( you can figure this out after priming and starting the pump.) (Always make sure the radiator barb is submerged so it doesn’t scoop air… The quickest way to prime the pump is to put the tube in your mouth and suck coolant into the loop. Then run the pump. Once all the air is out I push the tube back on the barb of the radiator whilst it’s submerged… then secure it with a zip tie… Hard way: Let the pump rest on a table and have the radiator hanging below with all the tubes connected with the cold plate removed … I then fill the loop to the brim… To check for air bubbles you can rotate the radiator from left to right letting the coolant move “pump” internally. This pushes air bubbles out and let’s gravity fill from the radiator and up. “Pump” method is needed as surface tension of the coolant in the tubes prevents bubbles from coming out. Once filled to the top and the “pump” method shows their are no bubbles, put the gasket and cold plate and hold firmly (you can put some screws back) Connect the pump to a power supply and run it. When the pump is on and the tone changes you will know you have hit an air pocket. Open and fill it to the top again ( this is if the “pump” method didn’t work for you) Repeat if needed. At the end the use a towel to hold the pump and over fill it. If some coolant messes that’s fine… then screw the cold plate on. Don’t forget the gasket… If there is an air bubble that’s not too big that’s fine it will go settle in the radiator. Steve from showed us this in his AIO mounting video … If you keep hearing air passing through the pump in intervals, the bubble in the loop is too big. The pump will then be pulling part of the large bubble it into the circulation that sits in the radiator. You will need to open the loop and top it up again. The above methods with prevent this from happening but you will know what to do Easy way needs lots of coolant. Hard way taking lots of time. Take care

[@Silverturky]

was that acrylic part done with just 3 axis machining and repositioning the part?

[@kerbopell]

I'm trying to take mine apart, I literally have all the screws out of the thing, and it won't come loose. There are a few screws on the inside I can see holding the thing together but I have no idea how to get to them. Did you video the disassembly?? I need help

[@riccardoc479]

Hi, i like your video, but i have a question? For quiet air flow (3090 fans isnt quiet) . Can i mod a 3090 rog with a h60i (i don't have more space with 500d obsidian) or instal LL fans on graphic card?

[@BleuShan]

14:13 German Engineered Perfection A.K.A der8auer reminds us that our definition of what we might consider as a flat plane might slightly be more convex than his.

[@N0N0111]

11:23 That is insane cool!

[@davidwells6525]

Hey is there anything special I need to know in removing the AIO from the card or can I just start removing screws and figure it out along the way? lol. I bought the card and an EKWB waterblock for it but but I cannot find one video on how to remove the AIO or install the waterblock. :(

[@stefanmv]

Is it possible to change out the radiator only, to a 360 rad, without changing anything else ?

[@Berfs1]

Just curious, would you want to try LM with that and retest?

[@Pohuist6666]

Hello i have a qweation i made watercool my gpu and my cpu, the cpu tem is abaut 50c full load but junktion temp is 65-70c is that normal ? Or i need to repaste it ?

[@98f5]

what kind of filiment are you using on your prusa those prints came out great

[@Erowens98]

Do you publish your CAD models anywhere? Would love to be able to take a closer look

[@bongyyy_]

Would it be possible to add a custom block but still keep the AIO ?

[@pascalbischof5235]

Was für eine CNC Maschine benutzt du für deine Arbeiten?

[@unknown_matter7818]

Custom made custom cooling. What a legend

[@SkyString_]

Nice work, hope to see Makita soon!

[@alsteooaai]

hello, do you have any advice for playing in 1440p (3440x1440) with a GPU with 4gb vram (details at a minimum)? it's a Mi8/Radeon R9 nano instict. I know very well that it could not be, but I do it anyway, I ask in case anyone knows about some software settings, BIOS or on the AMD panel or some setting / technology developed within the game settings (in addition to low details) to make the card go better in 1440, make the vram work better or try not to saturate.

[@neurokinetik64ES]

This is cool as an engineering exercise, but wouldn't the standard EK full-coverage block also fit on this version of the card once it comes out? I get that buying this card with the intention of modding it to use in a custom loop wouldn't make much sense, I'm thinking more of a short time ago when availability was worse and maybe this was the only version of the card you could get.

[@ravennexusmh]

i ran a msi 980ti with a aio adapter and just the pump unit. i ran tied the aio pump into a custom loop parallel with the cpu on the custom loop with 1/4inch to 3/8th inch step down barbs. there was a pump for the custom loop but the aio pump head was running also. being it parallel the custom loop pump didn't seem to over power the aio pump and it worked well on the one 280mm rad and no need to mount a 2nd rad

[@RavingDavith]

wouldn't keeping the same distribution plate mean you would have the same quantity of water flowing over the hot point as the AIO? meaning you would get the same cooling only difference is you could increase the pressure?

[@blackstonedragon]

Thank you sooo much, ive always wanted a video like this but jayztwocents would never do it I have a couple 2080 that are AIO cards and will eventually die long b4 the cards do. so thank you, thank you very much

[@joeldoxtator9804]

I have an idea to improve the temps a bit. Use a copper shim on the memory instead of the thermal pads. This should allow the base plate to remove heat from the general area much quicker.

[@alexanderm2702]

What if you add a vapor chamber under that cold plate? It seems like maybe the power density on the GPU die is high enough that the limiting factor is now the conductivity of the copper.

[@Fede_990]

Amazing!

[@AjayBajaj07]

can you provide a link for that acrylic block, so that we can use it too.

[@DJSammy69.]

This is just WOW! Amazing stuff! Very Impressive!

[@aljunmatocinos272]

I'm always thinking about this, making aio cooled gpu or cpu to be modded into custom. I'm really impressed.💯

[@Grimmwoldds]

The problem is... Is it worth it? No. Radiator sucks. Pump sucks. Tubing sucks for conversion. Water path probably sucks(unless you have a fully engineered solution like this Strix rather than a Gigabyte "slap an aio on top") AIOs are kinda dumb in that sense, the parts they use to make them merely "expensive" are also garbage. They are bad at virtually everything. At that point, why would you buy an AIO? You wouldn't. Save money by not overpaying for bad parts you won't use. Buy a 100 USD block instead and skip the AIO. Spend the extra money on intelligent design, such as aquacomputer parts(an octo or a d5 next goes a long way).

[@aljunmatocinos272]

Yeah I totally agree with you. It's just my curiosity about modding something like this because aio GPUs manufacturers has better design than anything you could find on the market, all of them are just block of acrylic glass without sense of taste in design. They don't understand the difference or having RGB vs having a good design. All of manufacturers sucks.

[@Grimmwoldds]

@@aljunmatocinos272 AIO card appearance is usually just a shroud(obviously this Strix has a BUNCH of custom parts, but it's BOM probably reflects that). So is the appearance of a custom loop waterblock. 3D print and laser cutting services are cheap nowadays. Better to make a custom shroud/backplate than to start from the base of an AIO.

[@gxp99]

So whats the limitation here? Is it the coldplate? How much heat can water remove from a coldplate that size?

[@kapt980]

That acrylic block is so cleaaaan. That would be a lot a work but I'd consider doing a transparent shroud, hiding this beauty of a block would be a sin.

[@JustinAlexanderBell]

Any chance to try dual D5 strong (24v) pumps in series?

[@grealish97th78]

hi, between a Rog Strix B660-F gaming and a Rog Strix B660-G gaming which one is better in ddr5 overclocking? [CPU: 12700 (not k)]

[@ronfair1202]

Looked all over for a Factory WB 3090 ti and still looking why did pretty much everyone do hybrid version and no custom loop cards ?

[@adamkamieniarz9223]

I frankenstained my H110i GT with broken pump together with Fury X, which pump clicks bloody murder since I got it, but everything performs well for the last 4 years.

[@ravenmooore]

Anyone recommend a glue for making an o-ring? And what material is that?

[@prorataxns8425]

That CNC machine is such a boi! Who's a good boi?! You are CNC! 😁