Gigabyte GTX 1660 Super OC (Card B)

Seller Note “Working with broken clip (connecting shroud to cooler)”

Summary

  • Initial testing
    • No shorts
    • No warranty sticker
    • Damage to 1 mount connecting shroud to cooler (as described)
    • Both fans spin
    • All ports working
    • Render test (GPUZ) – core 1950 Mhz, mem 1750 Mhz, fine
    • Kombuster HD
      • A bit hotter than I expected, core ~74°C, Hotspot 90°C
      • Noisy fan, 82%!
      • Power limiting
      • Suspect thermal issue
    • 3D Timspy
      • Passes, average score
      • Temperatures core, ~70°C, Hotspot 80°C
    • Subnautica
      • core ~73°C, Hotspot 86°C
    • Suspect there is a thermal issue e.g. dry paste
  • Measurements
    • Vcore – 0.8Ω (3-phase)
    • Vmem – 27.5Ω (2-phase)
    • PEX – 15.1Ω (L19)
    • 5V – 10.5KΩ
    • 1.8V – 4.1KΩ (L503)
    • 3.3V – 95KΩ
    • 12V PCI – 2MΩ+, PCI-E 8 pin – 636KΩ

Inspecting the card

Yeah, the cooler is in poor condition, the card is dirty, some thermal pads are degraded and the paste is dry as expected!

The core and memory chips are:

There is also damage to the casing of an inductor, which I have patched up with some solder mask:

The VCore VRM MOSFETs:

The Vmem VRM MOSFETs:

Testing the thermals

After:

  • Fitting a replacement shroud, cooler and fans from a donor GTX 1660 Super (Card A)
  • Some replacement 1mm thermal pads on the VRM and the bank of two memory chips
  • Fresh thermal paste

We have:

  • GPU-Z Render test looked nice and controlled
  • After load the card cools down efficiently and the fans turn off around <50 °C
  • Kombuster HD – fans sound OK (speed 73%), core ~69°C, hot spot ~83.8°C, showing a decent improvement, glad to see the hot spot lower and fans working less hard.