What did you find out about the X bracket and washer mods? What's wrong with the bracket?
This is what I think is wrong with it, but I am unable to confirm because I can't find my spare old x bracket.
The dimples or the four holes near the centre, do you think it's there for fashion, style or cost cutting. If you can cut-out holes & make the bracket lighter, then they are saving money, plus with the material saving, you can have an extra one, For example every 25 bracket that is made, but this is not the problem.
What I discover is when I was putting the Vega 56 back together, I found it very easy to push down on each arm with little to no effort. Now when It come to the x bracket on the R9 Nano, It a real tuff struggle to push down on the opposite arm to get the screw in.
Long story short, the old bracket is stiffer, stronger & certainly adds more mounting force pressure on the die.. If found to be true,, then this is better than the washer mod as it prevents user from stripping screw holes & killing they cards by short circuit when capacitors are to near the hole.
No-one should try this until I have tested old bracket on new cards as you can't just swap them over.
1. The new bracket may have a very thin clear insulator plastic along each arm. This needs to be transferred to the older X bracket to prevent short across the capacitors.
2. The inner four rubber/plastic on the old X bracket maybe taller giving extra mounting pressure, so you need to be careful here as too much can crack the die.
3. There maybe no advantage whatsoever if you have the extra mounting pressure, thermal paste may spread thinner thou, which is a good thing..
4. I don't know if the older x bracket will fit. Just have to wait until I find my spare to test.
NO-ONE IS TO TEST ABOVE X BRACKET MOD UNTIL I HAVE DONE THE TEST.
FINAL NOTE: I could swap the x bracket around between R9 Nano & Vega 56 Nano, but I don't really want to be messing around with two cards when I know I have a spare old x bracket somewhere..