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

[@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!!

[@JustinAlexanderBell]

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

[@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.

[@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 ?

[@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...

[@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.

[@LucasMp]

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

[@mentalplayground]

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

[@RaspberryRip]

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

[@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

[@Pointern]

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

[@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

[@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 >;)

[@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!

[@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!

[@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

[@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.

[@joker927]

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

[@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

[@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

[@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

[@jd31068]

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

[@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.

[@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

[@jasonmajere2165]

I like how you make it look all so casual.

[@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! 😁

[@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.

[@justinbouchard]

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

[@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.

[@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

[@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".

[@WolfHowl71]

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

[@andrewwickes1091]

The stock cold plate/distro plate is probably the hold back to lower temps. Obviously at that point you mighy as well get a Corsair or a EK open loop set-up.

[@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!

[@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.

[@phantom6653]

would have been nice to show how to remove the shroud and board

[@saikrishankumar]

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

[@Tsnoeijs]

This could be a comment on PH lol

[@SquintyGears]

I've wanted to do this exact thing in the past, but i don't have a CNC and 3D printer. Let me tell you, cutting adapting parts by hand is not as easy

[@organicmetal6850]

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

[@cyberwomble7524]

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

[@ATW878]

You're limited by the skived heat plate, there isn't enough surface area to transfer more thermal load to the water. Obviously they designed it that way to meet the bare minimum. You should have just CNCed a new heat plate while you were doing the acrylic. Beautiful job though!

[@michaelthompson9798]

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

[@krazypeople4]

I bought a gigabyte rtx 3080 egpu aio that i toredown to extract the gpu, the block they have on that thing is actually pretty nice and keeps the gpu under 50c. However without a backplate the memory modules get hot as hell. Also the block is copper and the radiator was aluminum so it didn't take long to clog up and need replacing.

[@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.

[@tresnugget]

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

[@TheGroundedCoffee]

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

[@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.

[@2mo2time]

Just for future repairability and servicing is 100% worth

[@calebland6246]

The acrylic part with the o rings looks like a head with a motorcycle helmet on. Should paint it to look like a skull to get maximum performance.

[@pavelgorlachuk1460]

Well done, just a slight correction. 3dB is 2 times. 10dB is a whole 10 times.

[@ZARuslan]

Original housing what size? ID and OD. Thanks! And why not trying to use existing waterblock with pump and add it to the loop? Not all can create drawings for 3D printer. Nice video)

[@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.

[@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.

[@enerjustics]

I like that this is still a project an enthusiast layperson can easily do at home (if they have access to $40,000 worth of professional tooling equipment)

[@zobilamouche420]

The 6900 XT Toxic Edition from Sapphire comes with a 360mm radiator, the card is insanely silent and cool :D The only thing I had to do was linking the pump of the AiO to the motherboard to lower its speed to 60% because it was doing a serious buzz noise at 100% for just 1-2°C of improvement.

[@Wasmachineman]

"insanely silent" wat my Toxic EE was loud as shit until I actually water cooled it with a proper custom loop.

[@Dr3x0w]

I bet someone could solder a 6mm cu pipe to the heat pipe of the cooler. They are easy to bend and there are 1/4 mm fittings too. This wouldn't take the complete thermal load but a chunk of it would go into the water loop.

[@razamadaz3417]

Beautiful piece of engineering, really enjoyable to watch.

[@MrArrakis9]

what would make this mod even cooler is if you cut a window out to show off the custom block but machined the acrylic to be the same design as the strix design aesthetic

[@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!

[@nonchalanto]

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

[@halrichard1969]

It would be great if you could do the same on the new 7900XT thats about to drop into retail. I am pretty sure there will be one or two AIBs with a Watercooled solution.

[@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.

[@rafchambers3651]

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

[@georgem.6136]

Roman is a bad ass machinist! Really cool!

[@N0N0111]

11:23 That is insane cool!

[@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?

[@Yock1980]

3090 made perfect sense to me as it was the only GFX card i could get at the time, plus i got it at MSRP! :)

[@kylegriffiths9005]

Can u post the cad files? Super dope video. I enjoyed this alot. Wish u went a lil more into the cad process, but CAD, CNC milling, laser cutters, 3d printing, custom watercooling, all on my favorites list. Just missing mini quadcopters.

[@cryptsys]

feel like you shouldve added a copper heatsink on top of the pump one that has fins on it that match the vrm fins. probably would do better.

[@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.

[@subamax8482]

Hello. Is it possible to manufacture this custom reservoir please? I really want to try it on mine 😍. Regards.

[@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 ?

[@unknown_matter7818]

Custom made custom cooling. What a legend

[@t_pagz]

I wish they had quick connects and different size rads to choose from for these hybrid cards.

[@Vadim_Andr.]

if you have a brain then it will not be difficult

[@tejay9416]

I paid way too much money for this card, financed it, and I have no regrets! LMFAO, Now with the 50 series on the horizon, the 3090 Ti is still a beast of a GPU two generations later. Love this card, it's completely obscene, the box is way too big, and the heat it generates is enough to heat up my whole living room. This card is awesome, VRAM is also hard to beat!

[@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

[@RambUz]

This make me wanna change out a noisy pump on one of my vega64 LQ ED, they look to nice to have them resting in a box.

[@AliasWilson]

Such beautiful work... keep up the good work

[@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.

[@fat4ll]

cool cool. and I was thinking my 3080Ti hitting 40C under load is too much haha. custom liquid cooling with liquid metal on the die

[@robertkennion9020]

now thats some effort

[@DrZmesky]

The block is really really nice

[@Nicc93]

i could not find the 3080 ti version of this for teardown videos. hoping this is close enough to help me in the future.

[@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?

[@igotzpotatoaim520]

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

[@fat4ll]

do you maybe have 3080Ti strix XOC bios? :)

[@skutah7524]

I have Asus strix 6800XT LC, but i immediately replaced the original fans with Noctua brown F12 fans. The card became really quiet.

[@floodo1]

I love these kind of videos. Thanks

[@craniumbox]

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

[@dreamcat4]

nice demonstration of CAD / CAM prototyping and machining skills. to a high level of competency. very impressive! ... meanwhile over here i am thinking how to cobble together a very tight budget custom loop. all with chinese parts from aliexpress. at other end of the scale. but the main thing i want to find is a good pump. or if its not adequate to buy a real D5 pump for that part of it

[@Safetytrousers]

DDC pumps are very capable.

[@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.

[@antnycost]

So I have one of these cards and I'm looking to convert it to custom watercooling in my first custom build. Are the guts of the 3090 ti the same in this card as a non AIO?

[@antnycost]

@MidnightCoding no, it is going to be sometime before I get to it. I've done a lot of shopping around but it's looking to be around 1k to do my whole loop

[@Luscious3174]

So it's pretty much diminishing returns beyond an overclocked 3080Ti. I know it's not a big deal where you are running 220V but in the US and other places you're pushing the limit of that household 120V outlet/breaker. Almost makes me wish more countries used Aussie 240V standard in the home. My Quad SLI rig pulled maybe ~1160W from the wall with four 980Ti cards and an 8-core 5960X at full tilt. Crazy to think that a single 3090Ti today can easily beat a setup like that for things like F@H. Maybe for the next video suggestion you can get one of those 2000W power supplies and do 2x 3090Ti full custom water cooled build in a case. It would be great to see a completed setup where going over 1600W actually happens.

[@MIK33EY]

RE: Power Connectors - Why don’t AIB partners place the connector/connectors on the same side of the PCB as the PCIe connector? (Obviously I am only talking about three fan models) It would make for way neater builds.

[@MrLogic3]

A very Millennium Falcon -esque design!

[@98f5]

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

[@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?

[@JustinAlexanderBell]

I also wonder how much the flow is being restricted from those several 90 angle fittings and quick disconnects.

[@chrisputkamer3249]

Yeah and I also wonder how long it took for it to heat up in comparison to the old Radiator.