Dell Alienware Aurora R12 Desktop: i7 11700F, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, RTX 3080

bearsworth8

Apr 15, 2021 2:45 AM

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Joined Aug 2011

bearsworth8Apr 15, 2021 2:45 AM

1.6K Comments

Quote from SeriousHeat3849

:

I'd be interested in ordering from you, but could you please Explain why the thermal pads that come with the 3080 are inferior to what you would be selling, and why it's necessary to change them when they're brand new?

Sure. In simple terms, the thermal pads supplied by Dell appear to have a low thermal conductivity. In test results, what happens is when doing heavier workloads requiring vram, the vram gets too hot whereby the card will throttle and drop in performance. You can see this yourself by loading up HWinfo 64 and monitoring the memory junction temperatures which hit 110 degrees. With a simple thermal pad change to something that is higher in conductivity and quality, the temperatures will sit around 90-96 degrees and never hits the thermal throttle threshold.

I remember reading somewhere that Nvidia's cards can still be safe within 100-109, but if you are using it for 'mining' or some high workload activity, you can pinch out higher hashrate and longer usage without much side effects to the card.

The thermal pads I have are 12.8 W/MK which is equivalent to the thermal odyssey. It's just most people are highballing them on Amazon. For miners, who wants to buy 2 - 3 pads @ $30-$40 when you can buy one at almost 1/3 the price. Save the money to recoup profits imo. For size the pad is 85x85mm, which allows you to completely change both the front and back. The size also makes it easier to cut because for the front side you just measure the width and slice as the length is close to some of the chips on the front.

Last edited by bearsworth8 April 14, 2021 at 07:51 PM.

1

SeriousHeat3849

Apr 15, 2021 2:50 AM

19 Comments

Joined Dec 2019

SeriousHeat3849Apr 15, 2021 2:50 AM

19 Comments

Quote from bearsworth8

:

Sure. In simple terms, the thermal pads supplied by Dell appear to have a low thermal conductivity. In test results, what happens is when doing heavier workloads requiring vram, the vram gets too hot whereby the card will throttle and drop in performance. You can see this yourself by loading up HWinfo 64 and monitoring the memory junction temperatures which hit 110 degrees. With a simple thermal pad change to something that is higher in conductivity and quality, the temperatures will sit around 90-96 degrees and never hits the thermal throttle threshold.

I remember reading somewhere that Nvidia's cards can still be safe within 100-109, but if you are using it for 'mining' or some high workload activity, you can pinch out higher hashrate and longer usage without much side effects to the card.

The thermal pads I have are 12.8 W/MK which is equivalent to the thermal odyssey. It's just most people are scalping them, while I purchased in bulk to get a deal XD.

Cool, thanks for the explanation. Do you know for sure that your thermal pads are a good fit for the Dell 3080? Have you confirmed first hand? How much would you charge and how would I pay you?

sri69

Apr 15, 2021 2:51 AM

601 Comments

Joined Dec 2011

sri69Apr 15, 2021 2:51 AM

601 Comments

Quote from x15349

:

Can you share what paste you used and any info or video on where to apply?

Created a video to illustrate from start to finish. See above for the youtube link.

Quote from Ohsighrus

:

That's great man, it's just a shame there has been no fewer than 3 better systems posted with 3080s, better CPUs, larger SSDs and the price was lower. Glad to hear people are happy with their purchases though. Good luck with the heat throttle and terrible case though.

This went on sale three times since you bought this system. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus...Id=6455824 [bestbuy.com]

I recently purchased that ASUS 3080 system from bestbuy, as there was an opportunity to use a 10% coupon. The ASUS system is a total piece of crap in comparison to the Dell system. Sure it manages to get 99 MH/s, but the junction memory temps are hotter and big pain in the @^# is an understatement for what it took to install extra fans in that cheap metal crap of a case to get the environment temps under control. It's like a tinker toy.

I'm not complaining since it functions post fan mods and is doing the trick from a mining prospective for now, but I'd take the Dell at this pricepoint in a heartbeat for those pondering between the two systems.

Last edited by sri69 April 14, 2021 at 08:08 PM.

2

bearsworth8

Apr 15, 2021 2:55 AM

1.6K Comments

Joined Aug 2011

bearsworth8Apr 15, 2021 2:55 AM

1.6K Comments

Quote from SeriousHeat3849

:

Cool, thanks for the explanation. Do you know for sure that your thermal pads are a good fit for the Dell 3080? Have you confirmed first hand? How much would you charge and how would I pay you?

Yeah, if you check back I already purchased the Dell R10's in fact a few so I can confirm they are a good fit.

I have also used several brands and tested them all to confirm which are good and which are bad. Thermal Grizzly, Thermal Odyssey, Gelid, you name it. I've tried them all. The only thing I did not do is use thermal paste because I find it messy. If you need to clean the gpu in the future, pads are easier to remove compared to paste. I believe paste is superior for cooling, but tbh if both products stay within safe temperatures by the manufacturer suggestions (Nvidia), then it won't matter too much.

Also, I actually sold out of stock because of the demand for them XD thus a new batch of pads coming on April 19th. Pads are made to order so fresh XD.

Last edited by bearsworth8 April 14, 2021 at 07:57 PM.

bearsworth8

Apr 15, 2021 3:00 AM

1.6K Comments

Joined Aug 2011

bearsworth8Apr 15, 2021 3:00 AM

1.6K Comments

Quote from SeriousHeat3849

:

Cool, thanks for the explanation. Do you know for sure that your thermal pads are a good fit for the Dell 3080? Have you confirmed first hand? How much would you charge and how would I pay you?

I sent you a PM

qsub

Apr 15, 2021 3:00 AM

1.4K Comments

Joined Nov 2015

qsubApr 15, 2021 3:00 AM

1.4K Comments

For everyone buying the thermal pads, the paste is probably better as per a youtube video i watched. (Guy who has the alienware in the corner of his desk with 3 monitors)

Nice hash has good OC stable settings here:
https://www.nicehash.com/blog/pos...for-mining

As for me, I'm just going to sell my card to get a free barebone PC. I have 4x3070 and 4x5700XT rig setup already.

My recommendation is use Flexpool.io for newbies. NiceHash takes a cut.

I'm on HiveOS for my rig but if I was just doing a one card thing I'd go with Flexpool/T-rex miner.

ETH is predicted to go up to 5k by end of may so hold the ETH!

Also use coinbase pro (not non-pro) or voyager (I go with voyager since they have more coin offerings then coinbase.)

2

bearsworth8

Apr 15, 2021 3:03 AM

1.6K Comments

Joined Aug 2011

bearsworth8Apr 15, 2021 3:03 AM

1.6K Comments

Quote from qsub

:

For everyone buying the thermal pads, the paste is probably better as per a youtube video i watched. (Guy who has the alienware in the corner of his desk with 3 monitors)

Nice hash has good OC stable settings here:
https://www.nicehash.com/blog/pos...for-mining

As for me, I'm just going to sell my card to get a free barebone PC. I have 4x3070 and 4x5700XT rig setup already.

My recommendation is use Flexpool.io for newbies. NiceHash takes a cut.

I'm on HiveOS for my rig but if I was just doing a one card thing I'd go with Flexpool/T-rex miner.

ETH is predicted to go up to 5k by end of may so hold the ETH!

Also use coinbase pro (not non-pro) or voyager (I go with voyager since they have more coin offerings then coinbase.)

It's true paste provides superior cooling, but is messy. That's why most GPUs use thermal pads. When you send it back the manufacturer if anything goes wrong, imagine having to clean off the paste on the vrams XD. There is a reason pads are standards for vrams. As mentioned earlier quality pads stay within safe temperatures so really there is technically no difference, except hotter?

SeriousHeat3849

Apr 15, 2021 3:06 AM

19 Comments

Joined Dec 2019

SeriousHeat3849Apr 15, 2021 3:06 AM

19 Comments

Quote from sri69

:

Created a video to illustrate from start to finish.

I recently purchased that ASUS 3080 system from bestbuy, as there was an opportunity to use a 10% coupon. The ASUS system is a total piece of crap in comparison to the Dell system. Sure it manages to get 99 MH/s, but the junction memory temps are hotter and big pain in the @^# is an understatement for what it took to install extra fans in that cheap metal crap of a case to get the environment temps under control. It's like a tinker toy.

I'm not complaining since it functions post fan mods and is doing the trick from a mining prospective for now, but I'd take the Dell at this pricepoint in a heartbeat for those pondering between the two systems.

Thanks for the info. Could you share the video that illustrates the process?

sri69

Apr 15, 2021 3:16 AM

601 Comments

Joined Dec 2011

sri69Apr 15, 2021 3:16 AM

601 Comments

Quote from bearsworth8

:

It's true paste provides superior cooling, but is messy. That's why most GPUs use thermal pads. When you send it back the manufacturer if anything goes wrong, imagine having to clean off the paste on the vrams XD. There is a reason pads are standards for vrams. As mentioned earlier quality pads stay within safe temperatures so really there is technically no difference, except hotter?

In complete agreement that there can be benefits to swapping crappy pads (read Gigabyte) for better ones. The good news is that there are multiple mousetraps to accomplish the same goals.
For this specific card modification, the paste is applied between two metal surfaces, not on the VRAM, so messiness should not be a challenge. I've had a modified card for over a few weeks now using paste between the metal plates and so far so good (knock wood).

Quote from SeriousHeat3849

:

Thanks for the info. Could you share the video that illustrates the process?

Link is above, https://youtu.be/YklybEdoKIM, hope it helps. If it doesn't get you to your goal, then explore pads as bears suggests, but you are likely to be successful with these simple mods in the video.

1

SeriousHeat3849

Apr 15, 2021 3:19 AM

19 Comments

Joined Dec 2019

SeriousHeat3849Apr 15, 2021 3:19 AM

19 Comments

Quote from sri69

:

In complete agreement that there can be benefits to swapping crappy pads (read Gigabyte) for better ones. The good news is that there are multiple mousetraps to accomplish the same goals.
For this specific card modification, the paste is applied between two metal surfaces, not on the VRAM, so messiness should not be a challenge. I've had a modified card for over a few weeks now using paste between the metal plates and so far so good (knock wood).

Link is above, https://youtu.be/YklybEdoKIM, hope it helps. If it doesn't get you to your goal, then explore pads as bears suggests, but you are likely to be successful with these simple mods in the video.

Awesome, this looks like it will be helpful!

crushyslushy

Apr 15, 2021 3:32 AM

418 Comments

Joined Oct 2016

crushyslushyApr 15, 2021 3:32 AM

418 Comments

Quote from sri69

:

I'm not a youtuber, simply created this video for your benefit to maximize the performance of the unit. Here is a link:
https://youtu.be/YklybEdoKIM

Thanks for the video - im pretty used to replacing thermal pads and paste but what i found interesting was the 3080 itself. It uses a vaporchamber for the contact to the chip, and it also has a heatpipe for the rear backplate!

That is some serious quality.
I have a ASUS STRIX 3080 that i use for gaming, it definitely doesnt have a heatpipe on the backplate and no vaporchamber for the contact either.

Cant believe this Alienware/Dell card has better quality cooling than the STRIX. Just doesnt look as cool but looks like Dell put money where it actually counts.

I hope word spreads about the quality of this card, too bad they put stickers where paste should be haha, but easy fix.

I dont know of any other 3080 or even 3090 card on the market that has a heatpipe for the rear memory to backplate, and vaporchamber for the GPU chip contact.

Nice batman btw, im a bit of a watch collector too.

3

Archaea

Original Poster

Apr 15, 2021 3:38 AM

1.2K Comments

Joined Oct 2007

Archaea

Original Poster

Apr 15, 2021 3:38 AM

1.2K Comments

Mine said it was delayed as I mentioned earlier. I chatted with Dell and asked if they could give me a carrot for the unexpected delay to prevent me from canceling and buying a PC from HP or Ibuypower or Cyberpower. My chat agent said she could do a discount. I accepted her offer, and resigned myself to a two month wait. Here we are two days later and I get the notice it shipped. Woohoo!!!

2

sri69

Apr 15, 2021 3:47 AM

601 Comments

Joined Dec 2011

sri69Apr 15, 2021 3:47 AM

601 Comments

Quote from wenovias

:

That is some serious quality.
I have a ASUS STRIX 3080 that i use for gaming, it definitely doesnt have a heatpipe on the backplate and no vaporchamber for the contact either.

Thanks W, appreciate it. BTW, I mis-spoke in the video mentioning that it was an ASUS STRIX system, but it is actually an ASUS ROG (republic of garbage) system, with an ASUS TUF gaming card. Dreading the day of needing to mod that card with pads.

1

localdeals

Apr 15, 2021 4:03 AM

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Joined Mar 2008

localdealsApr 15, 2021 4:03 AM

3.8K Comments

Delete

Last edited by localdeals April 14, 2021 at 09:05 PM.

localdeals

Apr 15, 2021 4:05 AM

3.8K Comments

Joined Mar 2008

localdealsApr 15, 2021 4:05 AM

3.8K Comments

Quote from sri69

:

Alright folks, as requested I created a video with a step-by-step to replace the front fan and repaste the RTX 3080 GPU. The temps in my machine decreased from 110 degree memory junction down to 76 degrees following these relatively simple mods. Not too bad.

I'm not a youtuber, simply created this video for your benefit to maximize the performance of the unit. Here is a link:
https://youtu.be/YklybEdoKIM
"Dell Aurora R12 RTX 3080 Repaste and Fan optimization - Easy 30 degree temp difference fix!"

Enjoy.

Great job... Thanks for the video.

Dell Alienware Aurora R12 Desktop: i7 11700F, 8GB DDR4, 256GB SSD, RTX 3080

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