Replacing VRM heatsinks with smaller ones?

zovc

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Jan 5, 2017
852
603
Hey!

I had to try another motherboard out for my build and the only one with the Z97 chipset I could get a hold of was the Asus Z97i-Plus. It ended up solving my issues, but it's got a huge heatsink that blocks my Noctua NH-L9i from being able to exhaust in one direction.



As you can see, "above" the CPU socket is a large heatsink. It's got screws on the bottom side of the board, so it looks like it could be removed. This heatsink is blocking basically the only place my CPU cooler can dissapate heat, since the RAM is on one side, the I/O is on the opposite side, and my GPU is opposite of that big heatsink.

I've seen folks attach extruded heatsinks on components (including even motherboard VRMs) before, is it possible I could do something like that and achieve okay results?
 

zovc

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Jan 5, 2017
852
603
If it helps, here's a picture of the back of the board. The screws that attach that heatsink are visible above the CPU backplate and cooler mounting points.

 

Phuncz

Lord of the Boards
SFFn Staff
May 9, 2015
5,827
4,902
It seems easily possible. It seems like the heatsink uses screws on the back of the board. I'd recommend you look into these:



Enzotech has these. This will allow your CPU to vent heat out the side of the VRMs and cool them at the same time.
 

zovc

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Jan 5, 2017
852
603
It seems easily possible. It seems like the heatsink uses screws on the back of the board. I'd recommend you look into these:



Enzotech has these. This will allow your CPU to vent heat out the side of the VRMs and cool them at the same time.

This looks even nicer than what I was thinking of. I'll look into those!
 

zovc

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Jan 5, 2017
852
603
What should I use to attach these things? I'll probably order some and try working with them next week, life permitting.
 

fabio

Shrink Ray Wielder
Apr 6, 2016
1,885
4,325
The enzotech ones work fantastic if they fit for your application.
Do you think these can sustain the mosfet heat on an Asus Z390 Strix ITX? I would like to remove that weird-nosense heatsink/shroud all together!
 

Josh | NFC

Not From Concentrate
NFC Systems
Jun 12, 2015
1,869
4,466
www.nfc-systems.com
Do you think these can sustain the mosfet heat on an Asus Z390 Strix ITX? I would like to remove that weird-nosense heatsink/shroud all together!

I've completed many build without any heatsinks on the mosfets and no complaints from the customs from crashes or bad clocks so far. So I think it would just be icing on the cake. :)
 

GuilleAcoustic

Chief Procrastination Officer
SFFn Staff
LOSIAS
Jun 29, 2015
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guilleacoustic.wordpress.com
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