 A hundred freaking degrees! Now that's hot. And not in a good way. What you're looking at right now is a thermal camera shot of the back of an RTX 3090. It's got a problem that's been fairly well-documented by the PC gaming community. The RAM runs as hot as an Intel MacBook Pro. And that's no joke. Fortunately, we've got a solution to tame the beast, and great news! If you can afford a 3090, then you can probably afford it too. And you can probably also afford our sponsor, KiwiCo, cause you a mad baller like that. KiwiCo ships out crates that contain hands-on projects for kids to help develop their creative confidence and problem-solving skills. Learn more at the end of this video or at the link down below. ["Skyward Theme Song"] Memory, specifically video memory needing cooling is nothing new. The electronic components in your PC release nearly 100% of the electricity they consume as heat. So while many graphics cards have all of their RAM chips on the front, where they can be cooled by the same heat sink that cools the GPU, we've also seen many designs over the years that have such a massive amount of video memory that RAM chips end up being installed on the back of the card as well. And these often require their own cooling. This usually takes the form of a metal backplate with a couple of thermal pads to facilitate the transfer between the chips and the heat sink. Now, obviously a flat piece of aluminum, like most graphics card backplates, isn't the most efficient heat sink you could design. But the thing is, RAM chips are relatively low power consumption at only a couple of watts each, making it mostly a non-issue. That is until you make a graphics card with a TDP of 350 watts, like an RTX 3090. Specifically for the purposes of today's test, we're using the Zotac RTX 3090 Trinity. When you've got that much heat to get rid of in such a small space, the problem is that it's gotta go somewhere. And if it's not being removed fast enough, it'll soak into anything nearby, like say for example, memory chips. To add insult to injury, Nvidia switched to the appreciably faster Micron GDDR6X memory for their 3080 and 3090 class GPUs. Now, technically GDDR6X is more efficient per bit of data transferred, but due to its faster overall speed, it still results in more overall power consumption and therefore more heat. So you take a hotter running chip and put it in a hotter environment and you end up with what we showed you in the intro, a bone stock speed RTX 3090 Trinity with surface VRAM temps of over 100 degrees Celsius. And remember guys, this is a reference board, which means that it's the design that Nvidia provided to their partners, like Zotac, Asus, et cetera, to base their own custom cards off of. Now, this shot here is with the factory backplate removed, which does mean we're hurting the cooling of the rear memory chips a little, but we only did that to give you a visual. Prior to removing the backplate, the memory junction temperatures reported by the graphics card itself were still in excess of 100 degrees, with thermal camera readings putting the backplate itself at about 90. That sounds really scary, but there've been a lot of hot cards in the past. Are those temps maybe okay? Well, we don't have a firm answer from either Nvidia or Micron about the maximum temps of these chips, but Micron did recently share the zero to 95 degree operating range of GDDR6X. And according to Igor's lab, the maximum is likely somewhere between 105 to 110 degrees Celsius, after which the card will start to thermal throttle. Now then, it's time to fix it. The cheap and cheerful way is to swap the factory thermal pads for something with a little more gumption. GPU manufacturers don't always use the highest efficiency thermal pads and pastes, and it's not always just to cut cost. Sometimes it's more about improving the longevity of the paste. Sometimes. But today's video is about something new. Now this looks like a bog standard water block, and technically, you know, it is. But it's not meant to cool your GPU in the way that you might think. Rather, it goes on the back of your graphics card, like a backplate, but with active cooling. It's an active backplate. It's really cool, but to be clear, it's more of an evolutionary, rather than a revolutionary idea. Back when dual GPU cards existed, we had double blocks that handled the individual GPUs, sometimes on their own separate PCBs, and Aqua Computer actually built a heat piped backplate that hooked into their water block terminal for cooling a 2080 Ti. This is just the first time we've seen it done so elegantly. Now it's not a standalone product. Rather, it's meant to be used in combination with one of EK's other existing water blocks. Just remove the terminal piece of the water block you already have, throw on thermal pads according to the instructions, and then tighten it all in. It's a little tricky, because you have to line up the holes on both the terminal as well as the backplate, all while squishing it like a stress ball to compress the thermal pads, but it only took a few minutes. With it all installed, the loop filled with my fancy water bottle, lttstore.com, it looks pretty freaking cool. Now I wouldn't bank on being able to use the slot above the GPU as it's now practically entirely blocked. Get it? But we can at least now answer the question of whether it really does fix the problem. With stock cooling, a long-term gaming stress test with F1 2020 left our memory just barely within spec. This is probably good enough for most people, but it's common knowledge that the lower your temps, the longer your semiconductors will last, and a stress test like FurMark was able to push it out of that comfort zone with Ethereum blowing past it. And this is even with more mining optimized lower power settings, including running the fans at 100%. Of course, before we recommend going out and buying a $150 backplate, it's worth investigating if a normal water block is enough to bring the beast within safe operating temps. In both F1 2020 and FurMark, we were now well within spec, even with no backplate on the rear memory chips, just by removing the heat from the GPU and the front memory chips a little faster. So for those of you who exclusively game, you probably don't need an active backplate. But if you're a crypto miner, there's still a solid chance that you will end up in the danger zone. Of course, if you rock a 3080 that does not have rear-mounted memory chips, you should be fine. So finally then, with EK's backplate fitted, our FurMark memory temps were a little over half of what they were when we were air-cooled. And even while Ethereum mining, we didn't get anywhere close to what I would consider dangerous. And as an added bonus, the GPU core itself ended up being cooler thanks to the additional contact area on the back of the card. Now, I'm not gonna pretend to be surprised by these results. The active backplate effectively adds direct water cooling to these couple watt memory chips on the back of the card, along with a big old hunk of copper to sink the heat off the back of a card. What's more surprising is why this solution even needs to exist. Nvidia is clearly aware of the problem and in typical fashion, silently adjusted the design of their founders edition cards to include additional thermal pads after Igor Labs initial report on the memory issues. But it's also possible that this will not be an issue going forward with the mining lock that's expected to be in place on the upcoming 3080 Ti. Subscribe by the way, so you don't miss our review. And then presumably on the rest of Nvidia's products going forward. But then that also assumes that Nvidia manages to build a mining lock that actually works. Speaking of circumvention, you can't circumvent this message from our sponsor. Thanks KiwiCo for sponsoring today's video. KiwiCo is a monthly subscription service that helps make STEM topics fun and interactive for kids of all ages. KiwiCo believes that if you learn small today, you can produce world-changing ideas tomorrow. And each month you'll get a themed crate that addresses certain specific topics. Each crate is designed by experts and contains everything you need to complete it, which means you don't have to run off to the store to get extra supplies like glue or scissors or whatever. The crate we have here is at a Kiwi level for kids aged five to eight that teaches programming and robotics. Another one is the Eureka level for your teens, age 14 plus that highlights basic engineering and sound practices. KiwiCo is just a great way to keep your kids occupied for hours and you can check it out today at kiwico.com slash LTT and get 50% off your first month of any crate. So thanks for watching guys. If you liked this video, maybe check out our RTX 3060 review. It's much more reasonably priced graphics card that doesn't need active backplate cooling or at least normally it's more reasonably priced. But what do you want from me? You can buy one.