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Poll: Would you be interested in a GPU / RAM water block?

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touser

Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2001
Location
Southern California
Hello everyone. I may be designing a waterblock in the near future that will cool the gpu and the ram on graphics cards. I was just curious if there was any interest in a block of this design. Any and all opinions are appreciated!
 
There's interest from some, but unfortunately not me. I'm not much of a gamer, just a hardcore number cruncher. (I actually do work with a computer. :))
 
I'd be interested as there aren't any available to buy and i'm all for pushing my card to its limits.
Later
 
definately interested, there is one out there for the 9800, unfortunately it looks flow restrictive as heck, and a high price. if someone could come up with a block for the gpu/ram that had 1/2 inch flow paths, i'd be giddy.


J.
 
I'm making whole-VGA block for me, but as you want to make one, I ahve 2 (or lil more) words in your direction.

VGAs differ very much, even 2 cards basing on one GPU & same amount of mem may be different. So unless your "block" consits of many blocks (each for each part and with various ways to mount), it won't work with all cards.
Also not only GPU & mem may require cooling...

When I O/C my Ge 4 Ti 4200 (128 megs, stock cooling <WC soon>), GPU gets hot, RAM is hard to touch, but ther are alos other hot parts. There's a stick with copper wire around it which seems to be the hottest thing on card (when card runs at stock timing it's slightly warm), there are also 2 other chipsets which get warmer when OCing card.
 
Highspeedpc sells the GPU wb that innovatek and gainward developed. Apparently they now have a version out for ATI cards also. They cool the GPU and the RAM, but they're around a 100 dollars. They also look like they could be restrictive. I would definitly be interested in a cheaper and low restrictive wb that cools the gpu and the ram.

I've overclocked my Ti4400 and the RAM gets pretty warm, even with heatsinks on them.
 
Just so you all know I will be working with Touser on this project so I may reply to questions, and/or comments directed at him or visa versa.

feyd83 said:
Highspeedpc sells the GPU wb that innovatek and gainward developed. Apparently they now have a version out for ATI cards also. They cool the GPU and the RAM, but they're around a 100 dollars. They also look like they could be restrictive. I would definitly be interested in a cheaper and low restrictive wb that cools the gpu and the ram.

I've overclocked my Ti4400 and the RAM gets pretty warm, even with heatsinks on them.

Thanks for the info feyd83!

Yeah that Gainward block does look quite restrictive to me, and I'm hoping to get my hands on it so I can test just how restrictive it is, and how well it performs. Also I hope to make the block the least restrictive I can without sacrificing performance, basically, the best balance between water flow, and performance I can come up with. One of the problems I see with that Gainward/Innovatek block is that there isn’t any cooling for the ram on the other side of the graphics card, which I think defeats the purpose of cooling the ram at all. Also the video card Gainward ships with this cooler built on it has the rear passively cooled, not water cooled.

Ven0m said:
I'm making whole-VGA block for me, but as you want to make one, I ahve 2 (or lil more) words in your direction.

VGAs differ very much, even 2 cards basing on one GPU & same amount of mem may be different. So unless your "block" consits of many blocks (each for each part and with various ways to mount), it won't work with all cards.
Also not only GPU & mem may require cooling...

When I O/C my Ge 4 Ti 4200 (128 megs, stock cooling <WC soon>), GPU gets hot, RAM is hard to touch, but ther are alos other hot parts. There's a stick with copper wire around it which seems to be the hottest thing on card (when card runs at stock timing it's slightly warm), there are also 2 other chipsets which get warmer when OCing card.

Thanks for your response Ven0m!

Yeah we are aware of the different configurations, and positioning of the chips on the different cards, but as all cards follow reference guidelines, they don’t vary in position of those chips from card manufacture to card manufacture. Essentially a GeForce 4 TI 4600 manufactured by Gainward will have the same positioning of the chips and such as a GeForce 4 TI 4600 manufactured by ASUS. This picture (thanks to Tom's Hardware) shows how the designs across different manufactures are vitrually the same (the cooling on the different cards is different but otherwise the cards are the same.) There are only the slightest of variations between models of cards. Also cards inside the same family (the family of cards being a Geforce 4 Ti 4600, 4400, and 4200.) This article, again thanks to Tom's Hardware, has many pictures of Geforce 4 Ti 4600 & 4400 cards. with the same ram configurations also have identical or very similar chip placements. The biggest difference comes between different families of cards, and an even greater difference appears between ATI and NVIDIA cards, so I think that if I wanted to make a block for, say a Radeon 9800 Pro, I wouldn’t have to change much of the basic design.

Thanks again for all of your input, and any comments or suggestions, anything is welcome!
 
hmm, I have "old" Ge 4 Ti 4200 by XFX and "new" Ge 4 Ti 4200 by XFX seemed to have different RAM placement...

I see that these (4400 and 4600) have similiar design with easy RAM access. With all 4600 loooking the same, 4400 the same and 4400-4600 very similiar, making a complete-VGA block for many ppl wouldn't be a bad idea.

but... RAM from my 4200 is more rectangular, on both sides and almost on edges of card - hard to cool with water. Some older cards also had that nasty RAM positioning. Anyway that block doesn't have to be for everyone.

Generally there are 3 ways to make a block for whole VGA, when we cool it from one side only.
1. monolithic block fo whole card, water flows over RAM & GPU, there is proper flow distribution inside, multilevel bottom needs tricky drilling (a lot of precision needed as RAM & GPU have diffferent heigh, problem may appear with users who do some lap job with their GPUs)
good things:
- performance should be nice on cards for which block was made (including lapping level)
- looking nice
- easy to mount
bad things:
- hard to make
- lots of precision needed
- heavy
- without lapping Ge4 Ti have far worse cooling and block cannot be for both ones with and without lapping

2. Set of connected blocks, which may be connected in series or paralelly or some kind of hybrid of first two.
"block" consists of 2 or more blocks. One is for GPU, and there might be one for whole mem (multilevel drilling needed too, to avoid touching some stuff between mem), or 2 for 2 chips each or 4 - each for each mem chip.
good things:
- if designed for this purpose, RAM block(s) might work with almost any GPU block
- will work nice with both lapped and not lapped GPUs
- if there are slight differences between cards, this design should be more portable
bad things:
- many blocks = not so easy to mount
- with more than one block for mem, mounting may be more complcated
- need to deal with intake and outakes in many blocks (problem with "compatiblity" with GPU blocks, which may be solved in the way to make it work only with some or only with yours :) )

3. One really big block on GPU, to which there will be connected copper/heatpipe sticks from mem.
There are no blocks for mem, but only copper plates on them, all connected with huge block on GPU which would take heat from all parts.
good things:
- possibility to use big, complicated GPU block
- will work with both lapped and unlaped GPUs
- relatively easy to manufacture
- easy to mount
- with small design changes (like additional RAM "heat sticks" mountings), it would be possible to make block for both ATi & nVidia cards
- if heat from RAM was transferred to kind of thick plate placed on GPU, on which proper block was mounted, it would be possible to have all-vga TEC cooling, but this way heatpipes shouldn't be used but copper sticks due to other range of temperatures, there might be probably used heat pipes but operating under TEC conditions (it's my previous all-VGA block design which I haven't made as I'm no longer interested in TEC cooling, maybe in future but not now)
- innovative design
bad things:
- RAM won't be cooled as nice as in solutions 1 and 2 but still very well, with even possibility of neat TEC cooling
- need to use some thermal insulation for whole card o avoid condensation when using TEC...
- innovative design

In solution 3. "innovative design" is in both god and bad sides. It's this way because this may be a good solution and in "bad things" because ppl haven't tried it and may be not perfect.
 
Thank you very much for your reply Ven0m! I will make an effort to briefly touch on a few points you made which I plan to follow up on tomorrow etc (I'm a lil tired after seemingly typing and reading all day heh)

Ven0m said:
hmm, I have "old" Ge 4 Ti 4200 by XFX and "new" Ge 4 Ti 4200 by XFX seemed to have different RAM placement...

I see that these (4400 and 4600) have similiar design with easy RAM access. With all 4600 loooking the same, 4400 the same and 4400-4600 very similiar, making a complete-VGA block for many ppl wouldn't be a bad idea.

This seems to be one of the interesting thngs about the TI 4200, and I attribute its design differnces to the fact that it was designed to be produced in either 64MB versions of 128MB versions...I will however be looking closer into this, however, and my previous statements were perhaps too genearalized but i used them to illustrate minimal differences inside the "family" etc.


Ven0m said:
RAM & GPU have diffferent heigh, problem may appear with users who do some lap job with their GPUs

I assume you are talking about the changes in height cause by "lapping" a GPU.

This is an area I unfortunatly dismissed readily, I was under the impression that most people did not lap their GPUs due to fear of damage etc. I don't necessairly think its that much of a concideration though, as I believe this is a relativly rare thing for people to do, and I also don't believe that a lapped GPU would have much if any effect at all. Experimentation will be our guide :). Also like you said depending on the design this is a non-issue, and as we progress we will be able to circumvent such problems. Another concern is complexity of design may add to the owner's freedom to minipulate the block after purchase, but the negative effects of this increased would be to a deterant based on intimidation, and complication of installation for a more inexperianced user. I plan for us to make a decision on this aspect later on.

Also the multilevel bottom is something I am aware of, and I intend to take as accurate of measurements as I can to determine the differnces etc in the heights of the GPU vs the height of the RAM, and to aid in overall design etc. The approach Gainward/Innovatek took was an intresting one and like you said it all depends on the overall design. :)

Ven0m said:
In solution 3. "innovative design" is in both god and bad sides. It's this way because this may be a good solution and in "bad things" because ppl haven't tried it and may be not perfect.

Ahh but that doesnt mean that the first generation of such initial innovative designs will be bad, yet a second generation will predictibly be more refined and better, than the innovation was, thats not to say that the first design couldn't be superior to most other designs before hand.

Oh well I should probably go to sleep now, tomorrow I'll probably find that I said something really stupid or incoherant (possiably even this part :p). So please excuse me, I will try and make changes tomorrow to this so it makes sense.


Ahh the easy part seems to have the ideas of ways too cool it, but the hard part seems to be balancing all the factors. Balance, balance, balance, and balance some more ;).
 
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hell yes, if you could make one that cooled the ram on my radeon 9700 pro and wasn't too restrictive, i would buy it in a heartbeat if its under $100. It would have to cool both sides of the ram though. A good place to look for ideas would be to look at VoodoPc's waterblock design for the GFx5900ultra, included with their F-Class computers. i know it's an nvidia card and nvidia sux the big one, but still, maybe you could get some ideas from it. It was in 2 editions of maximum pc. Im sure you could find it online.
 
It's not too nice to say that nVidia sux :) especially after trying to run some apps on ATi which are newer than drivers :)
 
well after all the accusations and "optimizations" (some of which ATI did too, don't get me wrong) and hype, and then the final undelivered product that my 9700 can beat in most benchmarks........i wouldn't say Nvdia's that great. Not sure about the new spiced up ultra tho..
 
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computerpro3 said:
hell yes, if you could make one that cooled the ram on my radeon 9700 pro and wasn't too restrictive, i would buy it in a heartbeat if its under $100. It would have to cool both sides of the ram though. A good place to look for ideas would be to look at VoodoPc's waterblock design for the GFx5900ultra, included with their F-Class computers. i know it's an nvidia card and nvidia sux the big one, but still, maybe you could get some ideas from it. It was in 2 editions of maximum pc. Im sure you could find it online.

I have a couple of friends with ATI cards so yeah we'll probably steal one and adapt the design to that :) its just that since touser and I both have GF4 TI 4600s we will probably make one for those cards first.
 
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