MSI RX480 Arctic Cooling Accelero S3 install

[Sanosuke_Sagara]

2 pics before we turn this aftermarket:

 

 

I learned my lesson getting a reference in the past, and I had so much problems with it being overvolted out of the box, and the card throttling immediately upon any kind of load..  my recommendation to everyone is to just get ANYTHING that is not reference so you have more power delivery and better PCB board to overclock with.

 

That being said... if your not OCing, yeah... get a reference to save yourself some time and money, because a reference won't have any kind of OCing power at all.

 

It only took about an hour or so to have it stable at 1400 core and 2000 memory @ 1.2volts, and I get about 10,100 on 3dmark Fire strike, I am using MSI afterburner to OC with.

 

The reason why I am posting this is because I love fanless coolers, or any aftermarket coolers but there are not many threads on them to confirm if they really fit or work really well.  It is safe to install without any issues.. and I have installed this on several different cards already the Radeon 7850 (fits great), the Nvidia 960 (fits great, but uses a different set of holes compared to what EVGA has on their back plate, so stock backplate was unusable on the EVGA), and finally on my latest GPU the RX 480 non reference PCB.

 

 

My questions I had when installing this, was because someone installed this on a reference and I think they had to take off the front plate, I just wanted to confirm that both backplate and the front mosfet/VRM plates all can stay, and the cooler works with it PERFECTLY!!!  No modifications, and no cutting of any of these backplate or front plate is needed for it to work, and also the MSI has that famous bracket that attaches the PCI mounting with its front plate cooler, and it clears it perfect as you can see here:

 

first I took off the stock cooler, the main reason i chose MSI over the other ones is because the very top cooler just takes the 4 screws to take off and you do not have to mess with the backplate or the front plate at all, and the main cooler itself does not touch any of the ram or the VRM's like some brands, so the MSI I choose purposely because I felt like the cooler was dedicated to just cooling the GPU only, which made it perfect for this purpose:

and again just the 4 screws to remove it, and the 3 connectors for the LED lights and the fan's on the stock cooler:

 

Ok USE the center holes, because it fits perfect with allignment of the cooler and also the GPU, I used here in the 2 pics below a small dab of regular thermal paste to give a test run to make sure it alligns up and I cleaned it up to put on some real thermal paste on it:

 

so after i verified it perfectly alligned up using some crappy thermal paste, I cleaned it all up, and just installed it the rest of the way:

Stock backplate is still being used:

I am using a 140mm fan on zip tied on the cooler, because the TURBO cooler that is an add on to this card is just a 140mm cooler with clips, so if you want it pretty just get the arctic cooling one, but I am just looking for function:

 

And here it is back in my PC!  I am using  an Asus motherboard Sabertooth R2, and it fits perfectly without any clearance issues on the very top PCI express slot BUT with the backplate that comes with the cooler, I do not think it can fit (atleast from what I have tried with my other 2 coolers)

 

Very satisified with this card and its perfect, and I really hope these pictures and information can help others like me feel confident in doing this and enjoying their RX 480 as much as I am.

 

my temps are around high 40C at idle with the fans not spinning at all, I haven't given it too much of a test yet, but that is a really powerful Noctura 140mm fan I am using, so I highly doubt I will ever reach normal operating temps.

[Waco]

I love the zip ties.

[ccokeman]

Im curious to see how much better than the MSI cooler this solution is.  When not under a 3D load the MSI cooler is dead silent.