[Share]Cooling down 970 Gaming!

Question

From MSI TW Forum
link：https://forum-tc.msi.com/index.php?topic=113191.0
The story happened in a frigid night few weeks ago. I turned on my computer since I want to play Watch Dog, which is a very popular game recently. Huh? No response? I tried several times and wondering if I forgot to connect the plug? But I never unplug my socket! After some easy tests, I reckon the computer is dead…but I’ve just got chapter 2 of my Watch Dog!!!
I sent my computer to fix station immediately, hoping they can save my computer’s life. After a few minutes, the clerk announced frigidly “The motherboard is dead.”
One thing is still lucky, my FX-4170 and R7850 are still alive! For a new PC, I decided to replace and upgrade the original one with an AM3+ motherboard. The shop owner showed some AM3+ motherboards to me, one is MSI 970 Gaming, and this is the first time we met. :> Of course, I took it home.
My equipment:
CPU: AMD FX-4170
RAM: Vengeance Low Profile 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 Kit
MB: AMD 970 GAMING
VGA: R7850 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC
PSU: ENERMAX Platimax 750W CrossFireX
COOLER: Thermaltake Frio Advanced
OS: Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit
Except the cooler and motherboard, the rest are old ones.
For the heatsink design, I really like the dragon, and the cooling effect seems great.
There are only 2 USB 3.0 ports for rear IO, but you can expand with front panel.
The capacitors next to Audio Boost look very powerful.
Here is a weak point, 8 pin port of power supply is too close to heat sink, so it’s easy to get stuck if you have fat fingers…
Heat sink panel is designed with nice hair texture with classic MSI dragon shield.
And my old friend FX-4170.
I upgrade my normal stock fan to a Thermaltake tower fan and assemble it for ten minutes with manual…
You need to take the original stand off if you need a tower fan. The new stand of tower fan looks better!
The point of this photo is the height of tower fan. For my memory the height is fine but higher level memory, like OC memories,  could get stuck because there is not enough space.
This motherboard is not too hot when it goes with normal stock fan, the worst situation is a little hot when you touch it. After use tower fan, the temperature is always between 35-42 degrees; in addition, the heat sink becomes just a little warm. I can say 970 Gaming’s heat sink design is quite good and got great result of cooling, if you use extra two fans, you  can reach much lower degrees.
The temperature is CPU constantly running half hour with 100%, the highest degree so far is 52 degrees. I think it’s low enough, because I’ve seen some CPU temperature up to 20 degrees for watching YouTube only. Therefore, I believe the importance of heat sink and fans match or not.
Of course using AMD with low temperature works very smoothly, Watch Dog can run with full mode although there  is a little latency, so just need to switch down a bit and you can enjoy it! Finally, I assembled my new computer and continue my Watch Dog. :D Although the equipment almost same with the old version, but I can feel better performance from new motherboard! In the past, use all the effect with full mode has more latency than now.
變成了這個有希望的姿勢了…
There is a story behind the pic. When I was going to the mission location happily and found out this person robbing poor people. At that time, my justices tell me to give the poor people a help, so I knock down the robber and kick his ass “accidently “, then he laid down with this “hope pose”…
Let’s end with view of the back of Aiden Pearce.

Answer 1

On this motherboard are going to be aimed at gaming only, so MSI avoids adding in power/reset buttons as well as a two-digit debug which we might see on more expensive models. MSI also eschews the OC Genie button on this board, which is a shame as a basic OC would help this platform in general. Providing a lookup table of overclocks takes time for each CPU range to be considered, and perhaps it is not worth the time on the 970 chipset.