Thoughts on custom 6800 block

Permanoob · Jul 29, 2004

I'm waiting on my 6800gt to get here next week and I'm also steadily ramping up to a water cooled system. One of the problems I'm seeing is that the only water block for the 6800gt is the Danger Den one and it's just too damned expensive. $30 maybe.. but not $50-100 bleh. So I thought I'd try and do my own.

Of course the final design never is as clean as it is on paper unless you're a terrible artist or on professional equipment (har har). Since I don't have my 6800gt in my hand yet I just went off measurments and photos I found online. Looking at this block, how effective do you think it would be overall?

As you can see I'm not running water compeletely over one of the ram chips, I'm not sure if that would have an adverse effect on any overclock I do. I tried to keep the flow as smooth as possible.

For the GPU flow I gave it 4 channels. Not sure if that would be sufficient either. I can always add a couple more in. The water will come down the left and catch on each channel and be directed back up. Do I want more flow or more turbulence?

Anyway.. any ideas or comments? Thanks

JFettig · Jul 29, 2004

I see no need for 4 barbs, have it go in and out in the middle but go in, over the gpu, then over and around the ram then back out. and dont worry about the water being directly over the ram, its no problem.

Jon

Permanoob · Jul 29, 2004

Like this?

squeakygeek · Jul 29, 2004

Permanoob said:
Like this?

Looks good to me. How do you plan on making this? Do you have access to a mill?

Permanoob · Jul 29, 2004

I'm still asking and looking around for a mill. I hope to find one. If not it's going to be one ugly job doing it myself. While I do have a VERY large amount of shop tools available to me, there's nothing like a solid mill job. I'm still waiting on my 6800gt though when I can get exact measurements and whatnot.

squeakygeek · Jul 29, 2004

Permanoob said:
I'm still asking and looking around for a mill. I hope to find one. If not it's going to be one ugly job doing it myself. While I do have a VERY large amount of shop tools available to me, there's nothing like a solid mill job. I'm still waiting on my 6800gt though when I can get exact measurements and whatnot.

I'm not sure it would be possible without a mill. your memory and gpu are going to be sitting at different heights, and you'd need to be able to very precise with your levels.

fafnir · Jul 29, 2004

the ram doesn't need to be watercooled, only worry about your GPU

the ram doesn't pump out enough heat for watercooling to help it that much

here's a stock 6800 ultra from bfg, they don't bother at all:

Permanoob · Jul 29, 2004

And here I thought I was being clever hehe guess I'll make something smaller or wait for someone else to release a cheaper block.

fafnir · Jul 29, 2004

there is a cheaper block: you can now get the swiftech MCW-50 with a 6800 adapter from swiftnets.com; costs ~$35 for the block and ~$12 for the adapter

runsalone · Jul 29, 2004

Are there any other places to get a waterblock for a 6800? Danger den really screwed me over here, I need a block by monday (doom 3!)

Como · Jul 29, 2004

yes, your ram would most likely get more heat from the gpu than it would lose into the block with that. simple heatsinks should surfice, a-lot of video cards (9800pro's come to mind) dont even have them.

squeakygeek · Jul 29, 2004

Como said:
yes, your ram would most likely get more heat from the gpu than it would lose into the block with that. simple heatsinks should surfice, a-lot of video cards (9800pro's come to mind) dont even have them.

That's not true.

termin@tor · Jul 30, 2004

I'm looking for a block to cover the RAM as well....

$50-100 -- bull****

The block will cost $125!!!!

I do not understand how they think somebody's gonna buy it. I'm not willing to get a waterblock that costs as much as the rest of my water cooling (without the blocks.) They're not even doing group buys! :temper:

They deserve to be castrated for this!

Swatdog · Jul 30, 2004

JFettig said:
I see no need for 4 barbs, have it go in and out in the middle but go in, over the gpu, then over and around the ram then back out. and dont worry about the water being directly over the ram, its no problem.

Jon

If you do that, wouldn't the water be hot by the time it hit the ram? I dont think it would do the ram any good really... But hey, i'm new to Water Cooling and i'm just guessing.

zabomb4163 · Jul 30, 2004

Swatdog said:
If you do that, wouldn't the water be hot by the time it hit the ram? I dont think it would do the ram any good really... But hey, i'm new to Water Cooling and i'm just guessing.

the temperature difference across components is neglidgable. try looking at the difference between the inlet and outlet temperatures of the typical water cooling radiator. the difference is small.

as to the question "should memory be cooled"
-are you aware that the memory on the 6800GT consumes 50watts of power? thats just as much heat as the ENTIRE 9700 card with much much less surface area.

SureFoot · Jul 30, 2004

termin@tor said:
The block will cost $125!!!!

Is it rumours and forum hearsay, or "official" communication from Dan ?

Also yes the ram on the GT an Ultra needs active cooling, or else mfgers wouldn't bother with heatpipes and fan shrouds covering them. RAMsinks + case fan blowing near or total watercooling..

SureFoot · Jul 30, 2004

I have a 6800GT as well, and yes stock cooling is.. sub par to say the least (reference design).
Anyway most mfgers put a *way* more consistent RAM cooler on ultra versions of their cards.. there *should* be a reason. I'm still with the stock cooler (waiting for a few watercooling parts still) but as soon as i watercool it, i'll try to OC it to say, 450/1200, and stay there. As i have *zero* airflow over my mobo, i doubt simple RAMsinks would be efficient.. That's what i had on my GF2 before and they were burning hot (==more than 55°C).. Also them pointing downwards (in my current case) won't help passive cooling. The BTX form factor of the new Lian Lis can solve that though (mobo is tipped over so GFX card components point upwards).
All in all i don't want to play with fire - i'll watercool the RAM as well.
Remember, there is no overkill.

fafnir · Jul 30, 2004

of course there is no such thing as overkill,

because when too much is never enough

surefoot, a few things to note about your 6800:

1. remove the entire heatsink thing and do arctic silver 5; once you find the "gauze soaked in oil" you'll understand (its over the ram and the mosfets)

2. lap the mosfet heatsink flat, its slightly curved, not very bad, but if you lap the thing flat and then use arctic silver, the heatsink does a much better job (the slim long annodized heatsink near the power plug)

3. have you ever thought about flashing your card to an "ultra" ?

the latest version of the process will almost never fail, and the increased **constant** voltages AND a cooler running core are well worth the time

and the failure rates due to the constant voltages being implemented are very VERY low now, (no reports of failures with the lastest bios)

the risks now are only human error and the power going out

see this: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=314079

feel free to ask questions

_

SureFoot · Jul 30, 2004

fafnir said:
1. remove the entire heatsink thing and do arctic silver 5; once you find the "gauze soaked in oil" you'll understand (its over the ram and the mosfets)

Well i'm still in the "YAY ! I got it" phase

I'll put it apart when i have seen all demos and tried all games with it

Or when i have my waterblock...

fafnir said:
2. lap the mosfet heatsink flat, its slightly curved, not very bad, but if you lap the thing flat and then use arctic silver, the heatsink does a much better job (the slim long annodized heatsink near the power plug)

Yep planning to do something for this one. Maybe adapting a bigger heatsink... With the overvolt and overclock i wouldnt want the MOSFETs to fail.

fafnir said:
3. have you ever thought about flashing your card to an "ultra" ?

Yes. I'll do all that when it's watercooled, though.It's an Aopen (reference design), i think it will do nicely.

Still waiting for the Danger Den 6800 WB to be available. I currently see no other good solution for watercooling it.

JFettig · Jul 30, 2004

you think its easy to make stuff like that? A guy has to make some profit like always, that block is definately gonna be an expencive one because it will have a long machine time, lots of copper and all that kind of stuff. the price sounds actually on the lower side of what I expected.

and yeah, the temp increase will be not noticeable at the speed the water travels through it.

Jon

Thoughts on custom 6800 block

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