TrashBench, an overclocking and BIOS tuning enthusiast, has pushed the old favorite NvidiaGeForce GTX 1060to 2,202 MHz using a DIY cooler. TheRedditorand TechTuber stuck to the aging GeForce’s stock BIOS and stock voltage, but the home-made copper pipe cooling can only be reasonably described as ‘something else.’ Aesthetics aside, the cooler propelled this card to a stunning five-fold victory in the official 3DMark Fire Strike chart (for systems packing aCore i5-12600KF).
With their trusty old Asus GTX 1060 6GB in hand, TrashBench removed the stock cooler and prepared for the GPU refit by crushing an assortment of copper piping lengths, acquired from a home DIY store, for better component contact.
Next, the now adjusted lengths of copper pipe were positioned over strategic areas of the PCB (VRMs, VRAM), and G-clamped in place. A water block and pump were attached to the GPU, and flexible pipes included the copper lengths in a loop – fed by a sizable jerry can of iced water for the reservoir.
With the DIY cooler setup ready to roll, and sensibly attached some distance from the host PC using a lengthy riser cable, TrashBench started work. Fiddling with the curves inMSI Afterburner, they walked the GPU clocks up, while monitoring temperatures. “I ended up with a pretty clean 2,202 MHz on the core stable enough for a full Firestrike run, and a score good enough to crack into the global Top 5 for GTX 1060s and a 12600kf,” noted TrashBench. But we notice they subsequently got six of the top six scores – even better.
13% faster performance
For context, the stock cooled Asus GeForce GTX 1060 that TrashBench started with achieved an ‘excellent’ 12,675 Fire Strike score just ahead of the modding work. With the new plumbing in place, it maxed out with a score of 14,302. That’s almost a 13% improvement in the overall benchmark score.
TrashBench now has their eye on some fun based on aGTX 1080 Ti, and teased the possibility of adding voltage mods to the tuning mix for this legendary GPU. Stay tuned.
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Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom’s Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
