- Joined
- Feb 20, 2008
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
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Waterblock for the HD 3870 X2
- Thread starter LucrativeFuture
- Start date
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2008
one has a black acetal top, one has a clear acrylic top, and the other is nickel plated copper, all the same block, just preference i guess.
OP
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2008
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
- Thread Starter
- #3
Yeah I just wasn't sure if there was any performance difference. Thanks
I'd recommend two MCW60s. Full cover water blocks 99% of the time have a lifespan of one type of graphics card. I personally think thats a waste of $100 when two independent blocks can be used forever practically so long as you can buy/make a hold down for it or the video card companies stop changing their mounting patterns every few generations....
The MCW60 has been on four different generations of cards for me so far including a 6800GS, 7900GS, X1950XT, and 8800GT. I'd say thats a pretty good investment for under $50. Low profile design, low restriction, and Swiftech did make a hold down for the 8800GTS series which had differently spaced mounting holes. Hopefully they will keep updating mounting brackets when needed. I still think Danger Den GPU blocks have better mounting hardware though.
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2004
- Location
- The Sticks of the Boonies, GA.
The plus side of a full coverage block is that it cools the memory and a few other chips also, which you don't get with just a GPU block. So you may have to incorporate some air cooling and ram sinks.
The disadvantage, like Moto said, is its only good for that style of card, which can get expensive if you update cards alot, update the card, you need a new waterblock. So it's up to what you're willing to spend and what all you want to cool with water.
The disadvantage, like Moto said, is its only good for that style of card, which can get expensive if you update cards alot, update the card, you need a new waterblock. So it's up to what you're willing to spend and what all you want to cool with water.
It isn't really a plus, the full coverage blocks have the same problem as the stock heatsink, the heat from the mosfets and the GPU get shared with the memory. With a DD IONE my GTs and CPU were 2C-4C higher and 12-14C higher vid mem than with MCW-60s and iandh sinks on the ram and vreg. The nice thing about this setup is not only is the heat from the Vregs and memory not getting dumped into my loop, the memory doesn't get any heat influence from anything but itself and my case temp.
The ONLY upsides to full coverage blocks is ease of installation and not needing airflow over the cards, but for less money than a full coverage I ended up with a better solution and enough money left over to pick up a silenX 120x38 just for the vid cards. The iandh ramsinks might now work for my next vid cards, but the MCW-60s probably will.
One of my MCW-60s has seen 4 vid cards as well, 6800GT, 7800GT, X1950XT, and now 8800GT, the other I picked up after I decided to go SLI, sold my IONEs on craglist and am very happy with that decision.
