Asus 680i Striker Extreme naked - under the chipset heatsinks...

[eva2000]

Today I was curious about what's underneath my striker's chipset in terms of TIM. So I took a peek under and below is what I found.

I decided to use a Thermalright HR-05 chipset cooler for northbridge and Thermaltake Extreme Spirit II for southbridge (yes fits fine and allows 8800GTS SLI and even for a length PCI-E based SATA raid controller in middle PCI-E slot if need to it seems).

The memory you see is Teamgroup 6400C3 D9GMH since i moved my OCZ PC8000 Titanium Alpha VX2 modules over to my DFI ICFX3200 RD600 system.

The last time to see the stock heatpipes.. bye bye and so long



What's underneath, looks like 2x TIMs there the normal grey pad and white paste too ??



Only the white paste made it's way to the northbridge and southbridge chipset cores it seems. 680i chipset is week 36, 2006 while southbridge is week 40, 2006 dated.



Thermaltake Extreme Spirit II on southbridge with clearance for 2x 8800GTS SLI





Thermalright HR-05 on northbridge with Coolermaster 70x25mm 0.12A fan





And Swiftech MC14 copper ramsinks on mosfets



Swiftech Apogee installed...



Temperatures on NB for MB temp on PC Probe2 dropped maybe 2-5C lower. Southbridge thermal probe = OPT3 dropped 6-8C.

[tcG]

Worth it.

[virtualrain]

Nice Eva... what retention/fasteners are you using on the Apogee? I don't think those look like what came with my Apogee. I got screws with black spacers grommets to use between the board and bracket... no spring tensioners!

BTW, do you think this board would fit a pair of MCW-30's on the NB/SB while still allowing for full length graphics cards? It looks like the only slot that would become unusable is the middle x16 slot.

[andyr(uk)]

Nice Eva... what retention/fasteners are you using on the Apogee? I don't think those look like what came with my Apogee. I got screws with black spacers grommets to use between the board and bracket... no spring tensioners!

BTW, do you think this board would fit a pair of MCW-30's on the NB/SB while still allowing for full length graphics cards? It looks like the only slot that would become unusable is the middle x16 slot.

I fitted a MCW30 to the NB and got a storm on the cpu , i also fitted a Swiftech MCX159-CU to the sb for the moment as i cant see me using the middle slot for a while anyway. But its definatly worth doing in my opion as the stock cooling on this board isnt up to it

[Revage]

good work eva , but i think you should turn that sb cooler left for 90 degrees
sry for bad english

[andyr(uk)]

Going to order one of those Thermaltake Extreme Spirit II for the sb as it looks a better fit than my MCW 159 , do you think you would get in a gtx gfx card in on gfx slot 1

[cadaveca]

NOt with using the stock mounting posts. it will interfere wit hthe heatsink. That's why he's got the close-ups...

[eva2000]

not sure on MCW30 since i don't own one of these

Apogee that's default springs etc.. except one of the threads included is longer than the other 3 ??? so used extra white spacers etc to fill the extra length heh

Revage, the top down pic might make the position of the TT ESII deceptive, if you turn it 90 degrees either way you have a little less room between 2 cards and greater chance the TT ESII to touch back side of the 2nd card - don't want to short the card do we

Not sure on 8800GTX as i don't own one and not sure how far the heatsink extends compared to 8800GTS... if the heatsink is same size and length and only 8800GTX PCB is longer then maybe ?

[Funky]

MEW30 fits the P5N32-E so it should fit striker as well.
Anyway i just took apart my P5N32-E and took some pics and then saw this thread. Thought it will be nice to post P5N32-E pics here so people can compare the chipset pics.

The Board


NB heatsink backside


SB 590SLI Heatsink backside


680i SLI NB chipset


590SLI Southbridge

[msgclb]

MEW30 fits the P5N32-E so it should fit striker as well.
Anyway i just took apart my P5N32-E and took some pics and then saw this thread. Thought it will be nice to post P5N32-E pics here so people can compare the chipset pics.

Funky, could you take some pics of the mosfets area or at least tell me how many mosfet heatsinks are needed? The more pics the better.

Also, are you just looking or do you plan on replacing the heatpipes as eva did?

[dinos22]

you guys getting any overclocking improvement or it this just for reducing NB temps

[eva2000]

too early to tell dinos, since i swapped in ram that hasn't been tested on this board so need to retest heh

interesting P5N32-E using week 45/43 NB/SB much more recent than my striker

[ziddey]

What's with the wrapping around the apogee? Leak spotting?

[eva2000]

yeah tissue wrap = leak spotting

[Funky]

well as far as i am concerned i just removed the pipes to give them some AS5 treatment. They do get very hot.
I have put them back on for now. Here, if i am to go in for alternative cooling, i have to import it from either states through sidewinders or frozencpu or get it imported from coolpc.com.au which is painfully slow to reach here. so i have very limited options when it comes to cooling. Locally almost nothing is available as far as 3rd party cooling goes.
All i have is my Tuniq :P

[Nilson]

eva2000, my NB chip on P5N32-E says 0645 A2... no white paste on my chips - there are some gray paste and it's dry out paste -> I can't remove it around the chip -> so strong/firm/hard substance...
it has "new" name now the real NF680I:

[GAR]

Worth it.

You're kidding right.

[eva2000]

interesting about the different labelling for the chipsets

[Drag]

edit:

will the south bridge cooler work with 2x 8800gtx?

[Nosfer@tu]

You're kidding right.

If you dont think so maybe you shoul go to Wusssystems.org ?

look at the icon in the top left corner! I would think this thread and everything Eva2000 does falls under that category

[msgclb]

interesting about the different labelling for the chipsets

Here's something that popped up on the Asus faq:
http://support.asus.com/faq/faq.aspx...Language=en-us

[GAR]

If you dont think so maybe you shoul go to Wusssystems.org ?

look at the icon in the top left corner! I would think this thread and everything Eva2000 does falls under that category

No comment for you buddy......

[spookz]

Here's something that popped up on the Asus faq:
http://support.asus.com/faq/faq.aspx...Language=en-us

Interesting.. seems to me the P5N32-E SLI, Striker, Striker Extreme ALL use a "C55XE" chipset.. whilst the coming revised P5N32-E SLI PLUS only use a "C55" chipset... hmmm...seeems like the P5N32-E SLI is using the better chipset? If there is a diff between C55 and C55XE???)
I'm assuming the XE stands for Extreme Edition? LOL...

Anyways NICE find! =P

[Khaotic]

It appears that GAR has been bitten badly by Asus boards, and only drops into the Asus labeled threads so he can spread his discontent. Heck, I've got a Striker that is behaving quite badly, but it's my motherboard now so I'll just wait and see what Asus dishes out. Either they support it and improve it, or they don't.

If the Striker were the ONLY board that Asus made, I would expect quicker results. But lets see, they have no less than 20 boards on the market at any one time and 5 of them are classified as enthusiast/overclocking boards. Considering the HUGE number of hardware combinations that are possible with any system build, it's no wonder that we enthusaists can sometimes feel like we are un-paid beta testers. BUt, if you want something tried true and solid. Get a Celeron on a BH6. That worked.

A lot of folks are dissing Asus and other folks when they say "they dont' support overclocking" Think about it. Overclocking VOIDS a CPU warranty. Period, end, dot. Why would Asus or anyone else PROMOTE that? Just becuase your car DOES 110 MPH, does that mean that the car manufacturer should say DO IT! Busting a leagal speed limit by 20 sends you to jail or at the very least, you loose your lisence for a LONG TIME.
Those two things aren't related? B.S. It's all a LEGAL play on words. Asus and every other PC manufacturer can give you the OPPORTUNTY to do whatever you want to YOUR hardware. But "TRUE" support beyond ANYTHING at default/stock spec is NOT their responsibility. Again, there are just TO many hardware combinations possible to hang all of this on Asus.

[GAR]

do you guys read before commenting, i said nothing bad about ASUS, or this board in this thread, all i meant was replacing the heatsinks were not worth it to me......read before commenting.