Next: Getting that CPU block in place - for good.
First thing to tackle are the thumb screws coming with the EK Annihilator. As identified earlier, they are about 4.5mm too long for a flush fit with the block's top.
A remainder of 3mm on the screw's top should do the trick for tightening them and result in a flush fit.
That first one looks promising (i use an old pipe wrench as a clamp and grind a long its side face for a precise cut - the steel wrench is much harder than the plated brass screws and makes for a good guiding surface)
This before-after shows the clearance gained quite well:
And here we go: My even lower low-profile EK Annilator. Once tightened, the screws tops should be co-planar with the block.
With that sorted, I can finally marry the block to the CPU: I'll use MX-4 non-conductive thermal paste, some Isopropanol Alcohol to prepare the surfaces, and will use the rear bracket coming with the EK Annihilator.
Interesting question will be how the block's contact surface kept up after about 5(!) years in a box - answer is under the sticker...
And - tadaaa- perfect mirror finish. What you see on the photo isn't oxidation, but rather the ceiling of the room and my fingers holding the camera mirrored. Pretty impressive quality.
After wiping everything down with Alcohol it's time for thermal paste. WIth 3rd gen Ryzens, there seems to be a whole bunch of theories on how to apply the thermal paste as the chiplet design generates heats in multiple locations and excentric to the IHS. I went with the "3 pea method" after watching
L1Tech's review on that matter - he seems to have tried pretty much everything. This
image here gives a pretty good indication of where to place the "peas":
Fast forward as two hands are barely enough to fix the block and backplate - let alone taking photos:
Fits and sits rock solid! Also, screws and block now make for a nice flat surface that will serve as a "table" for the GPU/Block combo that will be sandwiched on top...
Next is attaching my makeshift air cooler to the x570 chip - here (to the right) you see it under a layer of .25mm adhesive non-conductive thermal tape...
And that's that sorted - for now at least:
End game will be to use heat pipes to connect it to the case that should make for a pretty decent heat sink. In a first stage I just aim for getting things running to verify CPU/GPU thermals before investing in custom CNC'd parts.
As part of my "temporary" cooling solution I also need to tackle VRMs and chokes:
For the VRM's I'll use individual heat sinks, for the chokes (which apparently don't really need heat sinks - it appears to me more of a decorative feature on gaming boards) I have cut a larger heat sink into fitting pieces.
That's the choke heat sinks in place, fixed using .5 mm adhesive thermal tape:
And here are the rather beautiful Alphacool 4x4mm copper heatsinks for the VRMs. They are small but reassuringly heavy for their size- I'll still need to monitor temperatures carefully as they are nowhere near the mass of the original heatsinks coming with the board; load spikes may turn out to be interesting:
Hypothesis here is that I can just "stick" them in place using MX-4 [NOTE: Didn't turn out to be a genius plan - see futher down...]:
Looks about right but is suspectible to anything moving the heat sinks - gravity included...
Ignoring that for a moment, I can now get my modded chassis frame out of the box: The red lines indicate where we have removed material to make space for the components to fit - to the left is the C14 power connector hole, in the middle a "notch" to make space for the GPU's PCIe connector, to the right the significantly increased opening for the motherboard, allowing it to be lowered by 3.5mm into the case:
This now makes for a snug fit of the board on the shortened stand-offs...
...with CPU backplate and M.2 drive sitting perfectly flush with the chassis frame underside allowing to use the bottom case panel as a heat sink for drive and CPU.
By now, though, I turns out that MX-4 isn't really working as an adhesive - the VRM heat sinks came off
...so I clean up the mess and revert to .25mm thermal tape to stick them in place.
Starts to look like a computer!