Watercooling on GPU Ineffective?

Ok, I purchased a NV-68, and I am watching my temps right now under load get to about 70*C. Normal? It's kind of worrying me.

I think it could possibly be related to the fact that I did not clean off the thermal paste that was on the RAM, I just left that (since it was on pretty good and I didnt have anything to remove it). I did however clean off the core and put some Ceramique on it.

nv68 isnt gonna get as good temps becuase it is cooling the core and the memory, while the maze 4 cools just the core and ramsinks are used for the memory. so i guess higher temps would be expected? try tightening the block on a little more. i saw one guy did that on the forums, and dropped like 10 degrees celc.

Try reseating the block if you haven't already. Temps should not be 70 degrees. I don't think the fact that it cools the ram also would have a large effect on temps.

It wouldnt affect it, and I just did reseat the block (and put some arctic ceramique on all the ramchips). The main thing I notice, is that the weight of the block seems to pull the card down somewhat. I'm wondering if this could be affecting the performance of it, and how I would remedy it.

So far the reseating and AS Ceramique seemed to have helped alittle. Im hovering in the 59-61 Range. We will see what happens, im letting it stay in WoW while I run and do some things.

Midnight Dream said:

So far the reseating and AS Ceramique seemed to have helped alittle. Im hovering in the 59-61 Range. We will see what happens, im letting it stay in WoW while I run and do some things.

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The NV68 is very tricky to tighten down. Make sure you follow the "cross tighten" approach mentioned in the instructions. As it is 59-61c is still too warm.

Aidenswarrior said:

nv68 isnt gonna get as good temps becuase it is cooling the core and the memory

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I disagree.
In theory, the NV-68 should have no trouble whatsoever handling the heatload from the RAM and the GPU.

The problem with DD's design is getting it to seat squarely on the GPU...dollars to doughnuts, yours is not.
Their decision to use the outer mounting holes instead of the four squared around the GPU socket tends to warp the card and leave the GPU itself without good contact with the block. It's incredibly finicky to get the damn thing on right...so much so that I gave up and switched to a Maze4 and ramsinks.

I know it can be mounted correctly- at least, some people are claiming good temps with the NV-68, I just couldn't get it set up right.

try reseating the block atleast once and make sure that everything is mounted evenly - the full-cover blocks can be a real b**** to tighten down right to get good contact on both the core & RAM

It can be done. I have mine screwed tight....maybe a little too tight. Also, the weight of the thing will pull the card down and lose contact. You need to prop it up somehow. I have a ballpoint pin in one of the holes propped up with a thin CD case and paper. I'm not getting as good of temps still with this as I did the Maze, but it's only like 2-3 difference.

clocker2 said:

I disagree.
In theory, the NV-68 should have no trouble whatsoever handling the heatload from the RAM and the GPU.

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Yup, there's nothing inherently wrong with cooling the GPU and RAM, or the basic premise behind the NV68 (except they ARE heavy). My first GTX idles at 31c and the second from 1-2c higher, and this is downstream of a Storm (currently 71 degrees ambient). As long as you have enough rad and/or air whistling though it, the NVxx solutions work pretty well.