Watercooling with Gigabyte UD7

So when I orginally bought this motherboard I was going to do a WC loop. Well

things never go according to plan, I instead bought a Thermalright Venomous X

heatsink. So my question is could I do an entire loop using the built-in chip set

cooler on the Ud7 and cool the CPU for under $400, and how much extra would

it cost to cool the GPU with that?

I can never remember about the quality on the chipset heatsink...i think it's not great, but I could be wrong. You can do a CPU loop for $400 pretty easily, check out the sticky and skinneelabs.com and you'll get the idea. We have a list of retailers by locality in our sticky, so that'll get you pricing. My favorite retailers are jab-tech, sidewinder, petrastechshop, frozencpu, and (of course) performance pc's

I wan't impressed at all with the nb waterblock on my P55A-UD7 and I replaced it. I didn't like the fact that the barbs are non-replaceable and the fact that they are 3/8" barbs. My loop is done in 1/2" tubing, so I wasn't going to bottleneck the rest of my loop for the crappy nb block that Gigabyte puts on the board. Then, while going through my parts of stuff, I ran across my old Swiftech MCW30 nb block, which I used to have on a P35-DS3R board. Once I got to looking at it, I realized that it could easily be modded to work on my UD7 in place of that stock wb by simply redrilling the mounting holes on the mounting bracket. After doing the bracket mods, it mounted up like it was made for the board. And the MCW30 block is very low restriction, so you don't have to worry about adding unwanted backpressure to your loop.

Should I just skip the chipset water block all together, because it just seems

more like a hassle to do modding. I could be wrong tho. Will even need to cool

my NB if I were to OC my 920 to 4ghz? I still pretty new on all this WC stuff so

just be patient with me.

i'd say no, but read some data and decide for yourself http://skinneelabs.com/asus-r3e_blocks.html

If I wouldn't have already had the MCW30 I wouldn't have bothered putting it on the nb. I don't think you will need it if you are only going to around 4 GHz with your proc.

*quietly hopes for m0r7 and skinnee debate*

Personally, I don't think you're going to see enough of an advantage to go through the work of modding it for a different block.

Would be more worth it if you planned to do some heavy benching, especially in the realm of ln2 or dice, but not with water.

Just my 2¢.

Daemonkin said:

*quietly hopes for m0r7 and skinnee debate*

Click to expand...

*preps for the debate*

LOL, we ended in a stale mate last time and I highly doubt either of us will change our stance.

However, I'll take a 10C drop in operating temps any day of the week.

The broke-*** college kid in me has to point out the cost for that 10c drop
I can see the merit in it for wr overclocking...but other than that it seems like it's a bling thing (don't get me wrong, if you're doing it for bling, by all means) that doesn't add to stability or overclock except in the odd situation...I digress, agree to disagree (until i disprove you with testing muhahahahahaha :runs off to the lab from frankenstein: (note:there's no testing in the forseeable future unless someone sponsors it))

Inked said:

So when I orginally bought this motherboard I was going to do a WC loop. Well

things never go according to plan, I instead bought a Thermalright Venomous X

heatsink. So my question is could I do an entire loop using the built-in chip set

cooler on the Ud7 and cool the CPU for under $400, and how much extra would

it cost to cool the GPU with that?

Click to expand...

I read the thread. OP, you have a great air heatsink. You don't need go go water in any way for 4.0 overclock. If your case has poor airflow, or you just want to drop temps on the NB somewhat, get an Antec spot cooler or any 92 mm fan at medium speeds. You have a fan header that will control the fan depending on temps.

Watercooling is great, but done right it's not cheap. It becomes addicting too. I love my WC rig, but if you already bought a awesome air CPU cooler, you can play with air cooling for a long while like I did before WC. Don't..... Don't rush into watercooling, play with what you have and read up, follow posts and learn, please before making the leap.


You got a great start, play and learn with what you have, no rush.

On to cost.

You will cool the CPU very soon, so forget just cooling the mobo and GPU. You'll see.

CPU block $70
Rad, depending on your GPU, $60-$200
Pump $70 easy
Res $30 basic, up to easy $80
Tubing/fittings/clamps, $30-$100
Fans for 3 $42, just a 120x3 rad, you might need more raddage

Soo,, there ya go.

First, damn you Daemonkin.

@mor7 - You do realize we are essentially saying the same thing, except I am not talking about purely aesthetics (It does look damn good though). I see many reasons besides aesthetics. Stability reasons come into play when you have reached the thermal cap on the fets, IOH (NB) and ICH (SB) which is unlikely for normal use. For most (some assumption here), the reason to cool the board is to lower the operating temperature and extend the life of the components... even though we will probably change the board in six months to a year. The other reason is to move the heat to the cooling system versus heating up the case.

But, overall we're saying the same thing.

Yea, we both seem to have a strong case...I can totally see your point and do agree there are situations where board cooling would be beneficial...though from an EE perspective the extension of the lifespan isn't too significant in terms of operating life. the high end stuff that blocks are made for are all designed to last forever anyways...how many people do you know still running high end 478 boards? (I can think of none). The technology is just that far gone because of moore's law and amdahl's law that within 5 years it's ancient...but yea, same evidence to a different conclusion lol. We're gonna have to meet up and have a duel to the death over this issue one day...it's how Andrew Jackson would do it.

Aaron Burr.

And lifespan, wasn't talking about the blocks but the boards. 478 no, but early 775's are still kicking in my farm.

My work here is done!

skinnee said:

Aaron Burr.

And lifespan, wasn't talking about the blocks but the boards. 478 no, but early 775's are still kicking in my farm.

Click to expand...

i was as well, because at the operating temps we see, a hot running 478 would probably be crapping out about now if it was bought when the socket hit the market (the high end ones with the good componenets that blocks are made for)...so i suppose if you planned on running it for the next 8+ years it would make sense. Now, I will cede that 775 might have a longer lifespan than many of it's predecessors since they seem to be able to keep up with the games and tasks of today, but with the launch of SB driving down prices on x58 and *55, i bet a lot of them will get phased out soon...i suppose time will tell (just watch, tomorrow I'll have a thread "my board overheated, oh noes!")