John - I was thinking about why you had cool chokes and mine were hot. Since I had to pull apart my system to RMA the mobo I had a good look at my block. EK recommend using the 0.5mm thermal pad on the mosfets, and also provide those acetal standoffs we all love to hate to prevent over-tightening. Now in my opinion, EK's machining isn't good enough to use a 0.5mm pad, and after feeling my chokes and seeing my NB/SB temps, I was convinced that the standoffs were too thick and they were preventing good contact, which was supported by the contact mark in the past on the NB after block removal. When I put the block on the new mobo, I used the stock thermal pad (this one was much better than the last one) and its ~1mm thick. I also used a coarse emery board and filed at least 1mm off all 9 standoffs then attached the block as per usual being very careful not to over-torque the screws.
Surprise, now my chokes are cool under load too, and my NB/SB temps have come down ~15*C under load!
Anyone with an EK-FC R3E and bad temps I recommend you do this 'mod'.
Screen cap of temps 5 mins after startup in 20*C ambient temps:
I also picked up a GTX580 as an upgrade from my ageing GTX295. At 950c1900s2025m, it only scores ~500 points more in 3DM06 than my highly over-volted and overclocked GTX295! However it does do that effortlessly, and feels awesome to game with, plus DX11 support, and it's so much cooler running. I'm using the Koolance VID-NX580 block with it and its great, and matches the EK-FC R3E perfectly IMO.
3DM06 - GTX295 @ max stable OC
3DM06 - GTX580 @ 950c1900s2025m
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