Install a refrigerator on the graphics card: RTX 3060 plummets from 60°C to 22°C

Blogger TrashBench recently transformed an ice machine into the RTX 3060's cooling system, pushing the core temperature from about 60°C to 22°C in "Cyberpunk 2077."This blogger has done a lot of hard-core cooling experiments before, using car antifreeze, freezer, and transmission oil to cool down the graphics card. This time he decided to put an ice maker on the graphics card to test the limits.

During the modification, the original RTX 3060 radiator was first removed, and a custom fixed frame was installed on the core to connect to the water-cooling pipe. A submersible pump was placed in the ice machine and filled with water to form a closed loop. The hot water generated by the graphics card flowed into the ice machine bucket, and was pumped back to the graphics card after cooling.

When the pipeline was only connected and the benchmark test was run, the GPU temperature was about 44°C, but the water temperature kept rising and the temperature was not stable at all. Then the ice machine was turned on and the temperature dropped by more than 10 degrees.

But here comes a new trouble. Since the compressor of the ice machine operates on a fixed cycle, it only works for a few seconds at a time to discharge the ice cubes into the water and then stops. This rhythm is controlled by an unadjustable thermostat, and the heat dissipation cannot keep up with the heating speed of the graphics card.

TrashBench's solution is also very simple and crude. Just remove the original thermostat and replace it with a replacement part removed from the refrigerator to force the compressor to continue running.

But the compressor is only the first step. The evaporator coil is the component that is actually responsible for heat exchange, and its original area immersed in water is far from enough.

So TrashBench put a small plastic bowl under the coil to completely submerge it. The hot water coming back from the graphics card directly hits the evaporator, and the heat dissipation efficiency is truly maximized.

The final test showed that before the modification, the core temperature of the RTX 3060 in "Cyberpunk 2077" was about 60°C. After the modification, it stabilized at 22 to 23°C, and the GPU hotspot temperature also dropped from 75°C to 34°C.

However, it should be pointed out that there are obvious safety risks in arbitrarily modifying the internal components of water-containing electrical equipment. The entire modification process is not easy, but the effects are indeed there.