Custom GPU heatsink design

[svl7]

Hey guys,

I'm about to design a custom heatsink for my system. I've got a little question and I'd like to hear your thoughts about this. As you probably know, the screws which are fixing the heatsink on the GPU are hold by two pieces of spring steel which get slightly bent when the heatsink gets screwed on the GPU.

Now one possibility is, I could try to design the heatsink in a way that allows me to reuse those two pieces for holding the screws and fix them to the heatsink.

The other option would be to just make a copper plate with holes for the heatsink screws. Do you think this would work as well? I imagine it'd require some care when mounting the heatsink on the GPU in order to prevent to much force getting applied on the die. I somehow think it may be difficult to get the heatsink flat on the die with such a design.

What do you think? Are these spring steel screw holders necessary or not?

Here's a pic in case you're not 100% sure what I'm talking about, it's the stripped down heatsink (no heatpipes, no copper plate, only the two pieces which are holding the screws are attached).

[Granyte]

these part are build to be a little flexible so that they maintain pressure on the heatsink without applying to much presure and risk damaging the die under so the choice is yours but if i where you i'd keep them

you plan to redo the contact area an reuse the same heatpipes?

[Jimbo]

I clamp my heatsinks down with massive pressure on my boards and I've never broken anything. That's desktop stuff though, I'm not familiar enough with laptop components to know if the strength levels are similar. I do know that the more force I apply to my waterblock, the more temps drop (not by much, but it's there.)

Sorry If I completely missed the point LOL.

[svl7]

these part are build to be a little flexible so that they maintain pressure on the heatsink without applying to much presure and risk damaging the die under so the choice is yours but if i where you i'd keep them

you plan to redo the contact area an reuse the same heatpipes?

Yeah, I'll use the same heatpipes, I don't have a different choice (unless someone can tell me how to get cheap, custom formed heatpipes).

Besides possibly damaging the die I'm also worried whether it'll be flat on the die... maybe it's easier to get it really flat with the spring steel things.

I clamp my heatsinks down with massive pressure on my boards and I've never broken anything. That's desktop stuff though, I'm not familiar enough with laptop components to know if the strength levels are similar. I do know that the more force I apply to my waterblock, the more temps drop (not by much, but it's there.)

Sorry If I completely missed the point LOL.

I know that it's possible to apply quite a lot of force to desktop chips, they're covered by a heatspreader and the die isn't exposed.... what about the GPU? Does the waterblock get directly on the die, or is there a metal casing around it as well (as on the CPU)? Because if it's the bare die and you say it works fine... then I could save myself from the trouble of designing the heatsink to work with the steel thingies.

Edit: I just checked some pics of desktop GPUs with the cooler removed, there's also kind of a metal casing around the die, so I guess this allows to apply much more pressure. I imagine the exposed die is likely to crack if there's too much force applied on it. Right?

Edited July 21, 2011 by svl7

[Granyte]

i would not fear the die to crack but the whole board under it yes or scratching the die

it does not surprize me they expect desktop user to mess with thier hardware more then laptop

i have no idea of the prices but i guess it would be worth it to cheq how much it is maybe it could be made rentable by selling a couple to oher m15X owners

i have the same plan for my m17 if there are enough m17 user left around when i get there XD

Cooliance - Heat Sinks, Heat Pipes, and Heat Sink Resources

Edited July 21, 2011 by Granyte

[iloveb00bs]

the gpu die is pretty frigile, so i think reusing those clips are the way to go. honestly i rather is the one you posted on nbr. a dice pot for mobile systems would be awesome. really tempted to make one of those now. once i get the extra heatsink i will prolly see if i can get one made.

[svl7]

the gpu die is pretty frigile, so i think reusing those clips are the way to go. honestly i rather is the one you posted on nbr. a dice pot for mobile systems would be awesome. really tempted to make one of those now. once i get the extra heatsink i will prolly see if i can get one made.

Ok, yeah... I doesn't like it when there's too much force applied... to bad there's not a massive heatspreader covering it, like on desktop parts. I'm still not sure how I'm going to do it, making the clips fit accurately will be pretty difficult.

About the dice pot pic I posted... that was without such clips, and considering the weight of such a massive pot it might be a bit heavy, dunno. Anyway, the pipe would need to be higher so that it has some space for ethanol and dry ice, would require milling from a massive copper block, no idea how much this would cost... I guess I'll have to investigate a bit.

But honestly, just a copper plate would already do a great job for using dice, you could simply put some blocks on it and it would become pretty cool... a pot seems to be a bit overkill (well, but it would definitely look great!! )

[iloveb00bs]

maybe something like this to save money. solid cooper block plate with a little lip and a cheaper metal for the piping, maybe we can add threads to them so we can just screw them together. what do you think?

[svl7]

Good idea, the pipe could just be soldered/welded on the plate, but the question is whether the soldering joints won't break because of the temperature. Dunno whether making threads and screwing the pieces together would work, especially not when you want to put some ethanol in there.

Copper actually isn't that expensive, I'm mostly worried about the final weight of the assembly and also whether I'll be able to get a bigger block CNC milled, I have to ask the guy who told me he could do some CNC stuff for me.

Edit: Do what's the distance between the screws of the CPU heatsink? Is it the same layout as with the first gen i7 series? (Rectangular of about 4 x 5.2cm, measured from the middle of the screw)

Edited July 22, 2011 by svl7

[iloveb00bs]

hmm just remembered i have a metal bong, maybe i can turn that into a heatsink lolz.

let me try to find it and take a picture.

that would be sick, benching and taking bong hits. 2 of my favorite things to do combined into one. hahaha

Edited July 22, 2011 by iloveb00bs

[StamatisX]

design the heatsink in a way that allows me to reuse those two pieces for holding the screws and fix them to the heatsink.

That would be the safest approach and the easiest to implement. All you would have to do is to take the same design and simply change the metal to a copper alloy (or even extend its length and width a little bit).

The other option would be to just make a copper plate with holes for the heatsink screws. Do you think this would work as well? I imagine it'd require some care when mounting the heatsink on the GPU in order to prevent to much force getting applied on the die. I somehow think it may be difficult to get the heatsink flat on the die with such a design.

That would require a more complex design and I am not sure if it's worth the risk since with the first approach you may be able to apply the maximum force allowed on the die.

[svl7]

hmm just remembered i have a metal bong, maybe i can turn that into a heatsink lolz.

let me try to find it and take a picture.

that would be sick, benching and taking bong hits. 2 of my favorite things to do combined into one. hahaha

Hehehe, this reminds me of two "ghetto pots" I've seen recently online, check it out, pineaple can pot and a pan pot

I'm off, will think about all this, I hope I can come up with some sketches tomorrow.

[svl7]

That would be the safest approach and the easiest to implement. All you would have to do is to take the same design and simply change the metal to a copper alloy (or even extend its length and width a little bit).

That would require a more complex design and I am not sure if it's worth the risk since with the first approach you may be able to apply the maximum force allowed on the die.

The problem is, I don't have a digital 3d model of the heatsink, so I need to create it myself, and it requires a very high accuracy to make sure that the clips will fit and be in the right place at the end...

But probably I'll try it with the clips, seems safer if there's something that is a bit flexible.

[Jimbo]

hmm just remembered i have a metal bong, maybe i can turn that into a heatsink lolz.

let me try to find it and take a picture.

that would be sick, benching and taking bong hits. 2 of my favorite things to do combined into one. hahaha

ROFL

I want to see your face when you get a lungful of smoke and freezing CO2 gas.

[mw86]

I think I agree with StamatisX,

design the heatsink in a way that allows me to reuse those two pieces for holding the screws and fix them to the heatsink.

SVL7

That would be the safest approach and the easiest to implement. All you would have to do is to take the same design and simply change the metal to a copper alloy (or even extend its length and width a little bit).

StamatisX

[svl7]

Ok, I have the model almost completed, I'll probably add some cooling ribs and some little details, but it's almost completed. Really hope I can get it CNC milled soon.

Was quite intense, creating the 3d model, I have almost no experience with CAD, but I learnt some cool stuff. The most time-consuming thing was measuring all the important lengths and distances of the original heatsink, I used a vernier caliper with an accuracy of 1/200mm, works fine but needs a lot of time and concentration. Here some pics:

Edited July 24, 2011 by svl7

[iloveb00bs]

Just remember to make two, one for me too bro. Heheh

[svl7]

Just remember to make two, one for me too bro. Heheh

Unfortunately it won't work with the r3... the heatpipes go to a different side and the clips are mounted differently as well...

[iloveb00bs]

I'll buy an M15x just to slap it in, Lolz. It looks like they made an improved hs for the 580 and 6990 cards.

[svl7]

I'll buy an M15x just to slap it in, Lolz. It looks like they made an improved hs for the 580 and 6990 cards.

Ok!

I haven't got a r3 heatsink around, so I can't tweak the model for you, but I could send it to you if you want... unfortunately the differences between M15x and r3 heatsink are not negligible, so it's probably easier and faster to design it from scratch.

I've seen some pics of the new 580m/6990m heatsink, seems they slapped some copper on it.

I cut some "kind of cooling rips" in the model and a a little writing Maybe I'll redesign the cooling rips, but I don't think they're that essential, there's no air flow in this are, so it's more for enlarging the surface. Though I'm not an expert at thermodynamics, if anyone has some ideas, I'd be glad to hear them.

Here two new renderings:

[iloveb00bs]

Wow looks so cool. I do have an extra r3 hs if your interested in doing a r3 model heheh

[StamatisX]

Ok!

I cut some "kind of cooling rips" in the model and a a little writing Maybe I'll redesign the cooling rips, but I don't think they're that essential, there's no air flow in this are, so it's more for enlarging the surface. Though I'm not an expert at thermodynamics, if anyone has some ideas, I'd be glad to hear them.

Here two new renderings:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1660[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]1661[/ATTACH]

Instead of making them squared could you make them cylindrical? Your goal is to have the maximum surface possible (I like the engraved signature btw... )

[svl7]

Wow looks so cool. I do have an extra r3 hs if your interested in doing a r3 model heheh

Yeah, would be fun, now that I have some basic skills I'd probably be a bit faster... took me about 12 hours to draw this model (though a lot of it was measuring... that's the hardest part of it).

First of all l want to get this milled, I really hope that the guy who offered can do it, then I need to see whether I didn't mess up with the measurements, especially with the 6 cylindrical pins for mounting the clips, that was the hardest part. If this isn't accurate enough I'll have a problem.

Creating a heatsink without using the clips is much easier... but I'm really concerned about the die, so this is probably the better solution, I can only hope that everything will fit.

For designing a r3 heatsink I'd need the aluminium part of it as well as the clips. In case my heatsink will work and fit, and assuming I'd be able to let some more parts machined, I could design it for you.

But first of all I need to get my part machined, I really hope this will work out well and the guy can get it milled for me.

[svl7]

Instead of making them squared could you make them cylindrical? Your goal is to have the maximum surface possible (I like the engraved signature btw... )

Hehe, thanks

Yeah, thought about making them cylindrical, somehow ended up with squares. I also thought about just making long rectangulars... hmm.

[jeffreybaks]

loving this thread, so interesting. You might find it luck to get it all on the first shot with the measurements but if it dosnt perform the way you want it to don't get discouraged.