Asus 1660 Super Phoenix 120mm Fan Frame Mod

Intro

It was pointed out to me on Reddit that this might be compatible with any other GPU with the “Sunflower” style heatsink that the 1660S Phoenix has, e.g. the Zotac 1650.

I've included step by step instructions below.

This is a mod for the Asus 1660 Super Phoenix. A graphics card that is a bottom of the barrel version of the Nvidia 1660 Super. The card itself is fine, but it gets very hot and thermal throttles no thanks to the small heatsink and fan. The stock fan is my main issue. It's small (100mm) and generates a LOT of noise at anything above 60% speed. Another creator made an AIO adapter mount (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4354084). The idea is great and it yields amazing performance out of an otherwise poorly cooled graphics card, but if you don’t have a spare Asetek 4th gen AIO, then you’re gonna be spending anywhere from $30-100 depending on whether you can find a used model or just buy a new Asetek Gen 5-7 model and hope it fits. 

My fan frame mod was entirely inspired by the AIO mod. Only when I was measuring parts on my GPU to do the AIO mod with a 120mm fan did I realise I could create and attach my own frame to fit the heatsink and the attach a bigger better fan. This is where this 3D printed frame comes in. You do NOT need to remove the heat sink from the back of the card to perform this mod*. As a sidenote, the stock thermal paste on this card is quite bad, so if you're performing this mod, you should consider repasting the GPU die using something like Noctua’s NT-H1 or NT-H2 or Cryonaut by Thermal Grizzly (both are non-conductive). Feel free to ask me about repasting this GPU below. 

I made the corner holes big enough that you can easily get some self-tapping fan screws started as you manually drill/screw them into the frame and fan. Alternatively, if you’ve got some of those rubber anti-vibration screw thingies you could poke those through (like I have) instead. Also, if you happen to have some radiator screws and some nuts, you could secure the fan to the frame with those instead (assuming the screws don’t touch the PCB).

*You only don't need to detach the heatsink if Step 4.1 doesn't apply to you, or you happen to have "rubber anti-vibration screw thingies"  that come with some fans, such as Noctua fans. See images and Step 6.

Results

Doing this mod hasn't changed the temperature of the GPU much. It's about 1-2C improvement. I used to idle at around 48C, but now I idle at 46/47C. The main improvement is that the Noctua fan doesn't sound like a jet engine. If I crank the Noctua fan to 100% speed at idle, the temp goes down to about 39/40C in a room that's about ~22C.

You will need

• 1 small magnetic philips head screwdriver (a small shaft is necessary to get in between the fan blades).
• 1 3d printed fan frame 
• 1 spare 120mm pc fan (I placed the corner holes 100mm apart with Noctua’s 120mm NF-F12 fan in mind). If your fan holes don’t line up, then zip ties are your friend. 
• OPTIONAL: Rubber “screws” to attach the fan to the fan frame (see pictures) 

Things to be cautious about: 

• Don’t scratch the PCB of the GPU with the screwdriver. 
• You will be taking off the plastic shroud. The plastic for the screw mounts of the shroud is very brittle and breaks quite easily. 

Print instructions: 

• Print at 0.15 resolution for best results but I printed at 0.2. It prints the holes just fine at 0.2 resolution, but go smaller if you wish. Infill shouldn’t matter since it’s so thin and the walls are close together. There’s no print time difference between 20% and 100% infill. I printed this at 100% infill just to be sure it’s as rigid as can be. 
• Version 1.77 is what I have installed in my pc.
• You could throw this into tinkercad and increase the thickness if you really want to do so. I think I've found a sweetspot between the 0.72 version in the pictures and what I've got installed currently, 1.77.

GPU Dissassembly and Fan Frame Installation Instructions

As I mentioned above, since you're taking apart your GPU to some extent already, I'd recommend redoing the thermal paste and checking that the thermal pads cover all of the VRAM (I noticed that the pads on my 1660S don't 100% cover the VRAM). If you've done this recently, then don't worry about it.

Also consider getting out a microfibre cloth or canned air and removing as much dust on the GPU and heatsink as you can.

I'm going to assume you've safely taken the GPU out of your PC and have it in front of you with a small magnetic philips head screwdriver.

Setup

You will need to widen the corner screw holes for mounting the fan. In the 0.74 and 0.75 versions, the frame is a little larger, which should easily facilitate a self-tapping fan screw to go through the frame. The 0.72 version is a bit smaller. The holes on the 0.72 version are quite close to the edges of the frame - proceed with caution if you're going to use self-tapping screws on the 0.72 verison. For the 0.72 version, I gradually widened the fan mount holes with inreasinly larger screwdriver Torx and Security Torx bits.

Step 1

There are 5 screws securing the fan. Magnetic screwdriver is strongly recommended. Remove the 4 screws surrounding the fan. There's 1 more of these screws by the lower right side of the GPU (notice the proximity to the fan connector).\

Step 2

At this point, the fan should still be plugged in. That’s ok. Carefully set the fan aside just so you can get at the shroud’s heatsink screws.

Step 3

Remove the 4 screws that secure the Asus stock plastic shroud to the heatsink. Set aside these screws somewhere safe as you’ll need them again. At this point, the shroud should be loose, but the fan will still be connected.

Step 4

Set the GPU shroud aside; the fan cable will make this tricky, but you should be able to manuever the shroud in order to access the clip securing the fan connector. The clip for the connector is on the front of the fan connector and it's pressed up against the heatsink. I was able to undo this with my fingers, but if you’re really struggling to get your fingers in there, then you should use a PLASTIC tool to unclip the fan connector.

**Step 4.1**

There are a couple of ways to do this next part. I will explain the harder way as my NF-F12 Noctua fan made me use this harder way. The easier way is to attach the fan to the fan frame and then screw the fan frame (with attached fan) to the heatsink by moving the fan blades out of the way. Unfortunately, the plastic bars on my NF-F12 blocked one of the screw holes, which made it impossible to attach the fan to the frame and then the fan+frame to the heatsink. As such, I had to do it the way that I will describe below.

Step 5

Take the 4 screws from Step 3 and use them to attach the fan frame to the heatsink. The two arrows on the fan frame should be on the same side as with the rounded edge of the heatsink and the single arrow pointing down should be on the same side as the flat heatsink edge and PCIE connector.

Step 6.1

Fan Direction: You want to have the fan blades pointing downwards and the plastic bars that connect to the fan motor hub pressed up against the heatsink. Be considerate of the length of the fan cable and proximity to nearby fan headers on your motherboard. Note the # of the fan header for Step 7.

Step 6.2

With the fan frame attached, carefully attach the fan to the frame. If you widened the holes in the setup, then this should be easy with the "rubber screws". If you only have regular metal screws, then you may need to detach the heatsink from the GPU in order to have enough space to drive the screws in from the back.

Step 7

Plug the fan into your motherboard. I’d highly recommend downloading “Fan Control” (https://github.com/Rem0o/FanControl.Releases). Install and follow along with the video included on the github page. This app will allow you to create a custom fan curve for your new GPU fan to cool your GPU. 

I haven’t tried rewiring the pc fan to fit the connector on the GPU. The benefit of doing this is purely aesthetic or if you’re out of fan headers on your motherboard. Be sure to apply a new custom fan curve to the GPU fan. The amperage on the stock Asus 1660S Phoenix is printed on the under side of the fan (0.30A) and it is higher than the Noctua NF-F12 (0.05A). The voltage of the stock fan (12V) is the same as the NF-F12 (12V). The wattage on the stock fan is 3.6W and the NF-F12 is 0.6W. Rewire the connector at your own risk. The header on the GPU is likely (I cannot guarantee this in any way) rated for 1 Amp and 12 Volts, so you should be fine as long as your fan is under or matches it. It is probably fine to plug a single 120mm fan in there if you rewire the connector for this purpose.

Additional Notes and Helpful Measurements

If you're looking to make changes to the model I've included a couple useful measurements here. 

The GPU measures ~11.5cm (~115mm) tall and NOT including the PCIE connector.

It's about 15-20mm from the lower screws of the heatsink to the PCIE connector.

The screw holes on my Noctua NF-F12 fan are 100mm apart. I assume most 120mm fans are about the same.