Just some info and experiences with a GA-X58A-UD3R. After watching the Tech Yes City channel on Youtube (well worth a look) I decided to do a X58 build. I sourced the board with 3 sticks of memory and a cpu off Ebay, it was not cheap but it it came boxed with all of the original extras included and was in very good condition. A bench test found everything working but the northbridge chipset heatsink was very hot. So hot in fact that it was impossible to hold my fingers on it for more than a second. This set me on a mission to try and do something about this. I have to say the case I wanted to use did not help, this is a 15 year old all aluminium Lian li. While the materials and construction are top notch it is an old design in terms of cooling (or lack of it!). The first attempt at northbridge cooling was an 80mm fan on a Zalman fan bracket aimed at the northbridge heatsink. This did help but at the cost of noise, not only the whiny 80mm fan but case resonance as well because the fan was hanging off the end of a long bracket. All this was very annoying considering CPU core temps were well ok. I decided to upgrade the cpu so back to Ebay. A Intel Core i7-960 for £15 seemed ok but this was the start of a massive saga. After two weeks I contacted them to see where the CPU was, "sorry sir we have none in stock" would you like a I7-980X instead. Ok thats good, but it took weeks and weeks for them to send it, one excuse after another. I did not want to rock the boat as I really wanted the CPU. It did eventually arrive. Another 3 sticks of memory were added for a 12Gb total. Part 2 of the northbridge cooling attempts was to replace the 80mm fan with a 120mm one. This helped somewhat with noise but NB chipset temp was still higher than I had hoped it would be. The strange thing about this is if I stressed the CPU with GtKStressTester (I run Linux Mint) then the northbridge does not get particularly hot, but playing War Thunder pushed the temp up considerably. Part 3 of the temperature battle was a be quiet Shadow rock 2 downdraft CPU cooler, the idea being the CPU fan would also blow air over the VRMs and the northbridge. I also removed the sheetmetal cover over the northbridge heatsink. I seriously would like someone at Gigabyte to explain to me how having a finned heatsink covered by a metal cover is a good idea. Yes it looks nice with its blue anodising and Gigabyte logo but this is marketing stylists winning over the design engineers and basic common sense. However all this scheming failed, northbridge temps actually went up. Some experimentation revealed the somewhat obvious that there was not enough airflow through the case. One slightly obstructed 120mm fan at the front was not enough, though removing the side panel work wonders for temperatures. So I have now cut a hole in the side panel to take a 120mm fan. Success! while gaming, cpu core temps are just over 40 degrees and the Northbridge maximum is 46 degrees. Also noise levels are well acceptable. Even when stress testing the CPU maximum cpu core temps is 50 degrees.
I have to be honest, you could say that I put too much money into what realistically is an old PC but It was (mostly) good fun. I have learned quite a bit and I enjoy working on PC's, It runs War Thunder absolutely fine even on an old graphics card that was only mid range when it was new. I would recommend the Be Quiet Shadow Rock 2 CPU cooler, I would say it is the lowest cost really effective downdraft cooler. I have also fitted a dual readout digital temperature gauge (Ebay £4), the sensor wires go to the top VRM heatsink and the Northbridge. This provides evidence that the metal cover over the northbridge heatsink does trap hot air. With the cover on the heatsink temps were the same as those reported for northbridge chipset itself. Now lower heatsink temps are reported because there is a temperature gradient, i.e. the heatsink is able to get airflow to effectively carry the heat away. I would recommend doing an old PC build especially if parts are readily available, but just try to be realistic with costs. I have two socket 775 motherboards with modified Xeon socket 771 cpu's waiting for cases and a socket 1156 motherboard in an old flat desktop case (it runs War Thunder well). I had these boards from when they were new, I just did not move them on when I upgraded.
