GPU Deshroud Mod - Mindblowing Thermal Improvement 

For those asking - of course the "stock" measurement was done after fixing the mounting fault. Otherwise we'd have no idea how much of the thermal improvement was due to de-shrouding versus the tighter mounting. The footage you see from 3:29 was when I first realized how bad the problem was - so I fixed it, installed the original shroud and fans, and re-tested it to give us the "stock" / before de-shrouding measurement.

No wonder results are solid when every GPU manufacturer blocks all the heatsink with plastic and RGB...

A 4 dBA *and* 20°C drop is immense, that's a great approach to making a whisper quiet system.

I figured this video would be coming after the huge amount of de-shrouded systems in the last ITX systems showcase. Great work yet again, the quality of these videos never dissapoints.

They need to start selling GPU with just heat sinks with no fans, so we can use our own.

GPU board partners really should be making a heatsink design that allows for customers to add their own fans. Similar to how the raijintek morpheus fans are attached.

Now the last enemy in the mist: coil whine

I did something similar to a GTX 1080 Strix while I waited for replacement stock fans. I was amazed at how much better 2x120mm case fans were vs stock fans. Of course, cable ties were used.

I wish all manufacturer uses 120mm fan. They could get away with a thinner heatsinks. Imagine a GPU that makes universal brackets for us to change the fan to any fans we want.

Really can't believe you only have 342k subscribers, your production quality is insane and your videos are always great to watch. Plus, you're an Aussie not another American. Keep up the good work mate, you're one of the best tech youtubers I know of.

I hope that board partners can release deshroud friendly design for the upcoming GPUs. I'd be trying this on some old GPUs I have around for the mean time. Thanks for the upload!

Just wanted to say that your previous video with the NCase M1 + Accelero III mod helped my M1 build's thermals massively! Came back to check up on your channel and your improvements in the last 2 years with video quality and testing details is amazing. Subbed and looking forward to watching your channel grow. Much love from a fellow Aussie.

Ali, you should definitely do an SFF news series weekly or bi-weekly or even monthly. It would definitely be a good watch for beginners and enthusiasts alike.

Did you test the original Strix after you changed the long screws to short screws? I feel like some of the improvement is coming from that alone.

Entertaining and informative as always. Even when the topic doesn't remotely apply to me, the camera work alone is enough to make me watch.

I would love to see the deshroud mod with other manufacturers like msi, zotac etc. and see a comparison. Been waiting for this video for a while, and thank you for the informative videos!

Lool the timing! I was just searching "how to gpu notcua mod" this morning for a possible NR200 bulid and now you upload this!

love the noise level graphs compared to the temp graphs.... as someone very concious of noise this is very useful to see!

I watched you from the start...and I have to give you credit for evolving so beautifully..you are by far my favourite youtuber. Thank you for your humbleness and objectivity..keep it up. Greetings from Berlin

I'm a new subscriber to the channel and i absolutely love the production quality of your videos man! I'm thinking about building my first PC as i feel inspired by your videos. Keep up the great work!

If you use a dremel to remove those brackets *please* remove the cooler from the PCB before doing so, otherwise you'll risk cracking the die and killing your GPU!!!

When do we get an Optimum Tech upper body workout? I think that's what the people really want

Dang going back and watching this, you've improved so much as a presenter. You seem far more confident in your more recent content. Here it's clear you weren't quite as comfortable. Your voice is actually different here too. Not that this was "bad", you've just become even better.

Very interesting. Thanks for doing the comparison with both the exhaust and intake config. I'm sure your other components appreciate you dumping the hot air right out of the case as well. One thing I've always wanted to do was to duct the exhausts from the GPU out to the back of my case, but it's a little too cramped to do that at the mainboard. This seems like a much better idea.

I'm looking forward to part two of this video recommending cards for ncase m1 with deshroudimg in mind. Keep it up the good work!!

Did you replace those screws before running the test with the shroud? if not that could play a big factor in the more extreme temp differences.

I honestly was not expecting such a dramatic difference. Good video Ali. Seriously eyeing off my gpu and contemplating doing the same thing.

Thank you for simplifying the logo. It is a dream to look at now.

Some adjustments to your video since I deshrouded my strix rx 5700xt myself: -Asus uses a strange 7 pin sort of fan splitting header. The mini 4 pin you mention is for the rgb on the shroud. I tried to figure out which wires I needed to make a 4 pin pwm signal for the fans, but the fans wouldn't spin. You have to use the Asus software, but that doesn't allow much of an undervolt. I settled on argus monitor and put the fans on the AIO pump header on the mobo. Perfect solution! - you HAVE to bend the tabs on the shroud and you have to bend them pretty far for certain fans in order to fit the fans and not get the tabs in the fan blades. Even if you do it carefully, you will damage the heatsink a bit and will probably void warranty if they need to take the shroud off.

Great video! One suggestion : I would love to see text in the video, this way it would be way easier to identify which fan/cooler or which items we are looking at.

Bruh, gotta respect your videos aesthetic. Its so clean

Dang, I had no idea this sort of thing was even possible but it makes perfect sense! Love this! Might do it someday!

This is the kinda stuff I love, minimally evasive tinkering for sweet performance increases 😁

I did this with my Zotac 1080Ti mini, forever ago, by rewiring the existing fan connector to add in two 90mm Noctua fans. I also swapped the thermal paste for Grizzly Conductonaut. The card is SUPER quiet now, and still performs great!

you are an absolute professional. I have no fear recommending you as the go-to pc hardware channel.

Your fitment game is always on point, very tight

I assume this would work in the Cooler Master nr200, if so, I'm definitely gonna use this trick in my next build

This is an awesome mod, specially if you blew your budget or are just saving for watercooling. I would rather do this than to watercool!

Nice clean look! I've been deshrouding my cards for a decade now. ^^ I use a PCI bracket for fan mounting in my midi case.

Great work! btw, i liked you previous logo and intro more.

I'd still like to know why GPUs don't just come with 2 120mm fans clipped onto the heatsink. Why do they always use weird proprietary fans?

With this 5700 deshrouding would also allow for a BIOS mod, getting you on par with a 5700XT since the OC would still be in good temps

Hey mate, thanks for the video. Just a couple of days before this video, I did a deshroud of the Saphire Pulse 5700XT for my newest NCASE M1 v6.1 build. It was super easy and super effective. I could take off the shroud with only 5 screws and it was just the almost flat heat pipe uncovered. I have the NCASE M1, i9-10900k, AiO Arctic Freezer 240mm II, AsRock Phantom Gaming Z490 ITX/TB3, 2x Noctua NF-A12x25 Bottom Fans, 1x Noctua AF-9 PWM Chromax Intake Fan and 2x Noctua NF-F12 Chromax as exhaust in the side panel replacing the Arctic P12 fans on the AiO. Super happy with this setup. Idle 33db, Load 37db. The GPU is set to Automatic-Undervolt and fans spinning at 1500rpm max. It is so silent, that I don't even consider to put the GPU on water-cooling as well. See pictures here: imgur.com/gallery/MkenaZv

Thanks for the video and info!!! I have always wonder about this. Now to go try it!

For the few who read this: You can totally use this in any case! You just need to either use zip ties or bent wire to secure the fans directly to the card. Perhaps not the most elegant solution, but we’ll worth it in my opinion!

You should make a deshroud video with the 3080 cards.

Thanks for the video, appreciate the VRM temperature bench! I've upgraded from 980Ti cooled by Acceelero Extreme III to a Strix 1080 Ti and had it deshroud on the first day. I don't need to flatten any tab for the 1080 Ti in my Ncase M1.

i like this channel, you don't seem over the top or full of yourself being popular like some do once they hit a certain amount of followers !

I did this mod with my 5700xt Do not expect much in case of temp reduction maybe 3 to 4 °c But noise reduction was a huge improvement even with fans at 100% barely audible

Building in a NR200 Wed. Hoping to try something similar with my current 1080 which I've mounted a morpheus 2 on. Most likely not going to fit with 120/25 since that makes the card almost 4 slots but I'm hoping with slim 120/15 it will fit. With this and Fuma 2 for the cpu I should have a nice small air cooled silent little ninja of a pc.

I believe you are the first one I see doing these tests, that's exactly the kind of thing I do everytime my GPU fans stop working on my retro systems and is what I recommend my friends to lower the noise and improve temps.

Your videos have really been insightful. Especially these videos regarding thermals. Excited to try out this mod with the Silverstone RVZ01-E and the ROG Strix 2070 super. Going to be using a pair of Arctic P12s. The fans have a gap of a few cm between the heatsink, so it would be interesting to see the performance difference if any.

I do this with my NCASE M1 v6.1, Strix 1080 Ti and NF-A12x25's. Works fantastic. My concern is when I want to upgrade my GPU to one of the new ones coming out, making sure I can find one that I can do the same thing with.

What about that noctua cooler? You never showed us how this one does on the Ncase M1! Cheers mate, great content as ever.

Amazing job, man! Congratulations.

Really interesting concept. Glad the algorithm suggested it.

Was deshrouding my 285gtx long time ago and strap case fan with cable ties, excellent result.

Well of course it's good, it's turning it into a 4-slot cooler. :^U But yeah, definitely going to try this in my next build. Now if only there was a place where people could share which cards need minimal work to make this work. Or we can ask the board partners to provide DIY variants with thicc, flat heatsinks.

I have done the same with my Gigabyte RTX 2060 Super Gaming OC, worked wonders in terms of noise. The original fans would always cycle on/off and the min fan speed was quite high. The de-shrouding was very easy and no extra work was necessary.

Did the same with the node 202 using the amd Fury card from saphire back in the day. Loved it

4:03 Which toolkit is it? Seems like the link is missing. Heard the iFixit bits are a little soft. You had any problems with them?

I like your new channel logo. The one before was a jumbled mess.

This is my dream build! Silent and compact

I've been looking forward to someone doing this!

Since I installed an accelero III on my 5700xt mech, I wish I could buy my next GPU card bare and on the cheap instead of paying for noisy and bad stock cooling solutions (that I will be swapping anyway) Great vid tho m8

Was the stock measurement taken before or after your stock mounting fix?

I just literally built a white NR200 partially based on this video. Placing my power supply on the side, like here, made everything fit much better. (NR200, C14S bottom fan, 5600x, CM-V750 SFX, 1080 ti). Your build videos are awesome!

This will be my next build. Thanks.

Omg so basically gpu board partners are screwing us over 🤣

So why don't gpu's come with universal mounts for us to mount our own 120's to? Why isnt that a thing yet?

Amazing results. Honestly I would snip those metal shroud mounting tabs off to do it.

wonderful build, exluding psu and case (looks). those fams go so well with copper. big fan of air coolling ;)

For years I'm running RX 580 deshrouded 2x120mm artic 1200RPM fan 3D printed bracket And noise is gone

Perforated desk for further decrease in temps...lol

New logo!! Looks good!

Nice, I´ll going to test it!

I see you using NH-C14S and in the past you used to run a Noctua NH-D9L (i think), which of the two nets you better temps and noise?

I wonder which of the new 3000 series you can easily deshroud mod with?

Well done as usual

The Fractal Design Era can also benefit from this sort of mod. The clearance is a _lot_ tighter, but the airflow boost for that case in particular is incredible.

Great video, I have a question for the CPU cooling though. Is the fan set as intake or exhaust?

Wait, hows "exhaust" cooler than "intake"? Exhaust as in the fans blow down out of the case?

I have a deshrouded 1080ti in my NCASE M1 with 25x120mm Noctuas, like the build in the video. Huge improvement over stock, and very easy to execute. Would absolutely recommend it

Wow awesome work man

Wouldn't this work on any case if you just zip tied the fans to the graphics card heatsink? I would love to see a video on that.

Does having two fans blow air towards the GPU like that actually help with its temps?

Love the new Intro!

its awesome. I admire your imagination.

This isn't a deshrouding mod....this is a cold air intake mod.

How come, that when i went for deshrouding, i have higher temps on my gpu when set as exhaust? Did it with a 2080ti black from evga and had around 5-6 degrees hotter. Was very similar to the fusion 3 with the kraken for a 9900k that is limited to 95w...

Man you are pushing the SFF space (and PC building in general) forward with every other video these days. Really appreciate what you’re doing. Did you come up with this particular idea?

I would really love to see a video where you go one by one and show how low you can get GPU temperatures through combinations of different mods, such as better thermal pads and paste, undervolting, deshrouding and so on.

Anyone tried this in an NZXT H1? Is this even possible in the H1?

What about Coolermaster's NR200 ??

Badass! Thanks so much for these videos. Starting to plan my next build. Just bought the NCase M1 and planning a 5950x + Strix 3080, so curious if deshrouding will work there.

I love this channel, great video, thank you for this! Can you do a part 2 with the compatible 3080 + 3090?

okay, ravepriest1 copy just kidding

20c Ambient temp is too cool for real tests. not every one has AC and coooling room to 20c is not recommend ideal temp is 25-26c for siting.

A simple pipe guiding fresh air to the GPU makes a massive improvement.

Well done, it's impressive. My 1080ti's with water blocks are dead silent, never exceed 50 degrees Celsius, and overclock like mad as a result. Having enjoyed custom loop water cooled systems, I can't imagine doing it differently just because of how quiet it runs with a big radiator.