MSI GTX1060 6GB iGAMER OC Take apart and cooling performance tips

[Kiriakos GR]

Intro ..

At the times of Covid-19, an second issue appeared too and this is no other than shortage of new VGA cards availability.
Even eBay this it did become an hostile environment about the market of used VGA, but I did won this battle about this MSI GeForce GTX1060 6GB iGAMER OC.
For a lesser use of words I will simply mention is as iGAMER.

The history of this card purchase this is very interesting ..............

GeForce GTX 1060 6GB OC due eBay, seller location Austria, and product age 3 years, 3 months.
Product was purchased originally from Czech Republic from a Major MSI authorized distributor at 26.12.2017

Product appearance from my eBay seller pictures this was excellent, and I bid up to my limit of 245 Euro and won at 239 EUR with shipping to Greece. 

The story gets interesting or becomes an adventure when I am trying to identify the actual MSI naming – model of this card due the serial number.
Because original label description was not make any sense, this is GeForce GTX 1060 6G OCV2

I did follow the route to MSI website and become a member and I did register the card, not for warranty but so to find more about it.

Appearance this is similar to revision of MSI GTX 1060 6GB OC retail and or
MSI GTX 1060 iGAMER OC and or
Dedicated MSI GTX 1060 6GB OC for MSI released design of high performance portable desktop by the name Trident 3 at the end of 2016.

But these specific cards were manufactured at 09/2017 and MSI internal identification system gave the Model 912-V809-368 which this is unknown at retail market.

At least MSI helped me after some pressure from my end, and I did receive latest known vBIOS information and this is version 86.06.63.00.47 (2017-10-25) (NV809MH0.591).
Old vBIOS version 86.06.13.00.57 (NV809MH0.590)

This vBIOS confirms that my card model this is iGAMER OC but a special revision which this found at the market of Europe as bulk product, which this is truly an unexpected or extremely rare find.

GPU cooler thermal performance this is exceptional, fan blades 85mm diameter, separate heatsink for GPU & VRM, miniature and shielded DVI-D connector which this is an idea for reducing airflow obstacles around the PCB (better cooling due increased airflow).
The cherry on the pie this is use of Micron memory that is 35% more expensive than Samsung GDDR5.
Because of this detail the VGA enjoying larger Fill-rate than other GTX 1060 6GB.

By be aware today of such details I am now loaded with bragging rights! 
This is an gaming card which other than good aesthetics this came along with top performance and even be internationally awarded as patented MSI technology (due to Trident 3 PC) by holding several received awards.

They use to say that computer parts are built to a price, but here is an example of how MSI it did elevate product engineering and parts quality in use from their basic design, so this to won awards.
Black heatsink and a quality DVI-D connector along Micron VRAM all these additions will elevate production cost by few $ USD per unit.
Practically this is the major problem of our times, the factory saves five dollars per unit at production line, and any consumers thinking to improve the delivered engineering they throw or waste 100 dollars on gadgets them promising to improved thermals.

If you get a VGA card without paying attention at GPU cooler design details and this is a poor performer?  Nothing can help at improving low quality engineering. 

The most strange thing in my story this is that I was had only few hours to decide, if I would give a fight so to bid for this hard to identify GTX 1060 6GB OC card?
The powers of heaven they were standing at my side at that night, I am religious person with very strong faith.
My hunting for an VGA upgrade ended up after five months of emotional suffering.

 
 
Bellow there is a rich amount of pictures for you to see from Take apart process for re-paste along  Made in Greece DIY cooling performance tips
(JPEG Image, 1280 × 960 pixels) you are free to save them at your computer so to see them at 1:1 original files resolution.

[Kiriakos GR]

Part No1 Take apart process for re-paste

[Kiriakos GR]

Part No2 Take apart process for re-paste

DC Fan this is HA9515H12SF-Z
Application: Graphics Card
Voltage: DC 12V
Current: 0.45A
Bearing: Fluid Bearing
RPM 1250 ~ 3200 ( 38% Duty cycle up to 100%) PWM

Fan Dimension: 87mm (D) *15mm (H)
Hole Distance: 42mm*42mm*42mm

Cord Length: About 10mm
Power Connector: 4pin
Compatible with: MSI GTX 1060 OC / MSI R7 360 2GD5 / MSI GTX950

There is no manufacturer website online, and MSI told me that they do not have a specifications PDF about it. 
Just for me to feel safe, I did win a lucky bid and got a new DC fan at 35% lower price than what the Chinese cartel asking for it on eBay.
I was the only bidder at a listing this active for five days.    

eBay listings demonstrate pictures of this product with printed 4000 RPM as Max at 0.55A and this is unrealistic or motor specifications at 13.8V Max

In the real world this DC fan operates quit silent at entire RPM range which this is dictated by the iGAMER vBIOS.
For example I have not seen this DC fan to operate any higher than 1580 RPM when this card GPU feels warm at 60 Celsius at heavy benchmarks with 18C intake.
Summer time this is near and I will update these statistics...
 

[Kiriakos GR]

Part No3 first DIY improvement: Addition of three metal washer as spacers between DC fan and heatsink.

DC fan Application: Graphics Card
From a website (manufacturer) that ASUS buy their DC Fan,  I did find product specifications of max operating temperature of 75 Celsius.
Addition of three metal washers as spacers between DC fan and heatsink this was my decision for elimination of any thermal load this transferred to DC fan motor.
NVIDIA GTX 1060 GPU this has thermal limit at 83 Celsius and Max 92C, both seemed to me as hostile to DC motor body and for the Fluid Bearing.
And therefore I am now have much less to worry about of how this card will run at summer time that indoor Peak temperature at August this is 34~36 Celsius.
 

 

[Kiriakos GR]

Part No4 Take apart process for re-paste

I did note that MSI did not made it best, at least according to us be baptized as Overclocker at the year 1998,  by pushing the clocks of SLOT 1 INTEL Celeron 266 MHz up to 400 MHz.
We were improving heatsink flatness to the max, for a much better contact and for a faster rate of heat transfer from the CPU to the heatsink.

In this occasion I was afraid to do anything drastic, other than soft touching with 1500 grade sandpaper, just to remove a slight layer of copper particles, an surface refresh, so the shiny color of the copper to be restored.
Due the fact that this cooler has factory installed, four mounting points for screws, mirror finish looking at this heatsink this is not possible. 

Prolimatech PK-2 Thermal Compound this was carefully selected as Top one according price - performance ratio.

PK-2 this is 10.2W/m-℃  and thermal impedance resistance 0.015 ℃-in²/W
PK-3 this is  11.2 W/m-℃ and thermal impedance resistance 0.013 ℃-in²/W

The difference of the two this is a single degree of Celsius and PK-3 this seems as a better performer this with 4.5 EUR higher price tag, at the quantity of 5gram.

But when PK-2 this applied and tested for several days, this proven to be only a single Celsius better (lower) than by MSI installed thermal paste.
Today I am in position to define with great accuracy product specification of MSI Thermal paste too.

MSI thermal paste  9.2 W/m-℃ and thermal impedance resistance 0.017 ℃-in²/W

 
And brief conclusion this MSI thermal paste be approximately equal to Prolimatech PK-1
Prolimatech has a typo mistake at their web-page, PK-1 W/m-℃ value this is incorrect, but thermal resistance value this is correct. 

The conclusion for this thermal paste comparison this is that MSI using high quality thermal paste, and there is no need to be replaced by of you thinking better performance, this is best performing all ready.
I was after in-depth cleaning of entire cooler a good bath, a new fresh start.
MSI thermal paste was still soft and reusable after 3.5 years.
PK-2 this has identical color with MSI paste.

It's hard to go wrong if you do demonstrate trust at industries and products them coming with the text Made in Taiwan ! 


 

[Kiriakos GR]

Part No5 : GPU cooler DIY shroud extension Hot-Air extractor.

I was not able to demonstrate mercy at MSI nice looking shroud    , when I did realize that this blocking half surface of press fitted fins over heat-pipe.
MSI might think that slight performance loss in favor of aesthetics this is nothing big.
iGAMER shroud this is specifically designed for perfect fit at Trident 3 PC.
Plastic shroud length this is sort when the card gets in to regular PC case, DIY shroud extension this is required so significant portion of heat to be removed from the PC case.

While in Greece indoor temperatures they are now at April at 16~18C, and this modification does not have much of influence, at August when thermal peak this is at 35C indoor, there will be significant benefits at VGA card thermals(at  Idle and at full load) along at entire PC case thermals performance. 


   
 

[Panos]

Well done Kiriakos!!!
nice "hunting" . I hope you enjoy your "new" vga finding.
Dont forget to use msi afterburner software for small tweaks and adjustments....
https://www.msi.com/Landing/afterburner

last but not least upload some gaming photos with fps

[Kiriakos GR]

Well done Kiriakos!!!
nice "hunting" . I hope you enjoy your "new" vga finding.
Dont forget to use msi afterburner software for small tweaks and adjustments....
https://www.msi.com/Landing/afterburner

last but not least upload some gaming photos with fps

I am all ready exploring MSI afterburner software.
From an electrician point of view, this is exceptional data logging tool for us gaining in depth understanding of electrical parameters and temperature, and of how NVIDIA use them in a combination about succeeding GPU clock stability along power circuitry optimal performance, in to an extended GPU frequencies operating range.

Max FPS delivery this is correlated primarily to CPU computation capacity and then to what a modern GPU this can actually deliver.
Currently I am in a new research cycle and it is too early about me getting in to further conclusions.

I am currently in pursuit at getting the most performance from my system with Socket 775 along best performing hardware choices of computer parts, which I did in the past decade.
Right now I am after finding a used Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 (12M 3GHz) so to max-out CPU computation capacity.
Q6600 this is good so far, but one Q9650 this will boost  Min-Average and Max FPS by another 20%.
 
My own PC system this is primarily configured to serve 80% productivity and 20% gaming.
Battlefield V this is now served well at playable frame-rates.
The age of my DELL 23" monitor (screen) along technical specifications,  makes it qualifying at 1280 x 960 32-bit 75 Hz, next higher resolution this is 1280 x 1024 16-bit 75 Hz

Too many decisions to be made, too many factors to be calculated.
But eventually my system will become best optimized due my own expert hands, it's only a matter of time.   

[Kiriakos GR]

I did all the travel from Q6600 up to Q9650 and my prediction about FPS gain was correct.

From the other hand the LGA 775 platform has specific technological limits, that CPU power alone cannot overcome.

I am not saying something new here, when the ultimate purpose of a latest PC upgrade, this is decent amount of FPS at the modern game of your choice.
They are plenty available graphic card benchmarks, most of them are poorly documented. 
 
For example at 3DMark 11 Extreme, Physics score, this is the actual potential of the CPU when is in use AVX2 INTEL instruction, that this offering apply only at i7 fourth Generation and above.

AVX2 INTEL instruction this is widely used by all modern games, it works as acceleration,  the accelerator it is the CPU along with the modern memory controller, that is capable to deliver four times higher bandwidth.   

Single FPS in simple English: This is a unit of volume =  3D dimensions item along portion of data = file size.
We can also think the single FPS as this to be a ceramic brick.
An single man he can carry five or eight by hand, but thirty bricks?  its a huge load,  you have to use a trolley instead.
For 130 bricks we need a real vehicle this capable to handle the weight.
 
 Q6600 along Q9650, both are great CPU, for anything else than Gaming at 2022, it is somewhat painful to me, that this platform cannot serve 1080P gaming at all.
 1280 x 1024 16-bit 75 Hz =  55 FPS average and this is the Max that Q9650 can deliver.

I did bite the bullet (speaking of expenses) and upgrade my PC to LGA 1150 platform.
Now I can also confirm that for pleasant 1080P gaming, this is the platform capable to do the job.

Unigine Valley Benchmark_1.0   this is somewhat more realistic as FPS measuring software, and or as artificial Load for the graphic card and the entire PC.
The comparison of the two platforms, it is breath taking, benchmark setting 8XAA (not a regular choice when gaming), so in gaming the FPS are higher.

At realistic conditions of gaming:
Now    : Min 82 FPS,  Average 90 FPS, 122 FPS as Max (i7 4770) = 1920x1080

Before : Min 25 FPS,  Average 55 FPS,  72 FPS as Max  (Q9650) 1280 x 1024
Before : Min 21 FPS,  Average 47 FPS,  61 FPS as Max  (Q6600) 1280 x 1024
 
Last screenshot this is a very interesting one, its a seven hours gaming session  , values in Green are GPU load, ans values at Red this is GPU temperature.
Feel free to download it at your PC so to be able to see it at higher resolution screen ( you need something better than a laptop).
GPU average load this is 55%
GPU average temperature 60C --- 63C Max (Room temp 20C).

I think that I did excellent work at GPU cooling system improvements, but the card alone, this is also a true gem ! 

 
 
 

[overvolt]

Yes this specific MSI GTX1060 and it cooling system, it does look impressive !!
Nothing for you to worry even at June up to first 10 days of August (the warmest period of the year).   

[Kiriakos GR]

June is here 

28.5C ambient (room temp), I was forced to activate a cooling fan in to my office.

Even so I have some statistics to share. 
MSI GTX1060 cooler (heatsink), this requires 6 Minutes 40 seconds so to heat up from side to side at Gaming conditions.
Temperature on idle = 36C
Temperature on Load = 68C (average)
Peak = 70.5C 

DC fan statistics
Within first 6 Minutes 40 seconds, the DC fan also follows same thermal curve of heatsink,  RPM this increases and stabilize.
DC Fan RPM at idle =  1487
DC Fan RPM at load = 1700  (average) 
Peak =  1818 RPM

GPU Hot spot
Temperature on idle = 43.9C
Temperature on Load = 72,2C (average)
Peak = 78.5C

GPU stabilize it core clock at 1898 MHz , from start to finish = 01:52:00 Gaming session.

In summary the graphic card it does hold well,  no signs of over heat, and I am looking forwards for the next benchmark at the next month. 

[Andrew-88]

What comes next ?  Testing under heatwave