Plug and play liquid cooler for HD7870?

[Negatron]

Hey everyone. I've just joined OC.com after using the site to look for answers, ideas, and just for fun, for the past few weeks or so. I just got a new rig a couple weeks ago and I'm looking in to liquid cooling the GPU which is a PowerColor HD7870 GHz. The factory heat sink is pretty small with only two heat pipes and a single 92mm fan. This thing gets loud and hot when I load it. It's also having some pretty serious screen tearing problems even though it's only a couple weeks old. I don't know if liquid cooling will help that or not.... Anyway, I'll post a picture of that here so everyone can see and confirm weather or not it's actually screen tearing. I don't know if I'll have to RMA the card or not but, either way, I would like it to perform just a little better and, to that end, I am looking into liquid cooling solutions. I have my FX8320 CPU liquid cooled already with a plug and play 240mm.

I really like the idea of mounting the cold plate/pump and radiator/fan, plugging in the power, and being ready to go so I guess my biggest question is does anyone make a sealed liquid cooler for Radeon GPU's aside from that Arctic Accelero Hybrid one? I really don't like the look of that thing and I don't need half the parts that it comes with including the cheesy aluminum heat sinks, the radiator fan, and the shroud/fan assembly that cools the 'other' parts (VRAM and such). Also I prefer to use a 140mm radiator considering the rear chassis fan hole in my case fits a 140mm fan. The aforementioned solution uses a 120mm radiator and fan. Thanks for your advice!

EDIT - I forgot to ask about the need for air cooling of the RAM and VRM chips of VGA cards in the absence of traditional air cooling solutions. I understand that all of the 'other' parts of GPU cards are normally actively cooled by the cards fan. Since I really want to use a sealed liquid cooler, one which might not be manufactured to be used with my HD7870, I know that I'll have to do something about the components on the graphics card that aren't the actual GPU chip. If I have big high quality copper heat sinks glued to all of the other components on my HD7870, and have a 140mm fan blowing room air across those at about 75-85 CFM, will I still need to mount any fans directly to the graphics card?

As my 7870 is now it is way too loud and hot to overclock to any useful extent. I think my only practical options are to upgrade the card, which is only a couple weeks old, or to liquid cool and over clock the card.

 

[XNine]

The ONLY full cover block for that card is by EK. I have one on my 7870. Works like a dream.

 

[Negatron]

The ONLY full cover block for that card is by EK. I have one on my 7870. Works like a dream.

I would like to have full coverage but I'm really just looking for a 'GPU chip only' all in one solution that I can use without having to run coolant hoses and an external pump and reservoir. I'm hoping that I can find something like the Corsair Hydro H90 that will either fit my card out of the box or that I can modify and adapt to work. The plan is to use one of those for the GPU itself and add copper heat sinks to the other parts of the GPU card with one of my 140mm side case fans blowing air over everything. I'm not sure this will be enough to cool the VGA RAM and VRM's. That, weather or not this setup is enough to overclock reliably, along with if there is even an all in one solution that will work for this card, is what I'm hoping to find out here.

If it comes to having to pick between a custom built loop and buying that Arctic Acelero Hybrid thing, I'll probably just get a giant aftermarket air cooler with 3 fans for the card. I would rather upgrade to a 7970 with a better stock air cooler than spend the money on a custom built liquid cooling system for the 7870. Maybe that's not the best way to go but, looking at it objectively, I am more likely to get more performance per dollar spent with a stock cooled and slightly over clocked 7970 than I am with a custom liquid cooled and heavily over clocked 7870. Who agrees or disagrees with that statement?

 

[Knufire]

The giant aftermarket heatsinks (basically the other models in the Arctic Accelero series) do work extremely well, just a pain if you want to go Crossfire.

Lots of people have mounted sealed liquid coolers to GPUs...zip ties or shoelaces work well with the proper technique.

You'd get better performance out of the slightly OCed 7970 though. Might not be worth it depending on how much you can sell the 7870 for (if you can return it, you're golden).

 

[Theocnoob]

Your screen tearing problem is due to not having V-sync enabled. It's not a defective card. Turn V-sync on and you solve your problem. You don't need to liquid cool that card to fix that.

 

[Negatron]

Your screen tearing problem is due to not having V-sync enabled. It's not a defective card. Turn V-sync on and you solve your problem. You don't need to liquid cool that card to fix that.

That's a relief! From where might V-sync be enabled?

 

[Negatron]

The giant aftermarket heatsinks (basically the other models in the Arctic Accelero series) do work extremely well, just a pain if you want to go Crossfire.

Lots of people have mounted sealed liquid coolers to GPUs...zip ties or shoelaces work well with the proper technique.

You'd get better performance out of the slightly OCed 7970 though. Might not be worth it depending on how much you can sell the 7870 for (if you can return it, you're golden).

I'm pretty sure I can't return the 7870 but since I can use a sealed liquid cooler with it I think I'm OK with keeping it and overclocking it. I've been doing a little research on the matter and I've found a couple ways of doing it, one being the zip-ties or other string type retainers. There's a guy who's making steel plates that will mount certain brands of cold plate/pump units to GPUs but they're not available now due to him being overwhelmed with orders. I'm still a little unclear as to which models this works with but in most cases it seems to be necessary to either modify the card itself, due to the GPU chip stand-proud measurement being smaller than the stand-proud measurement of the surrounding (metal stuff?), or to use a copper shim in order to get the cold plate to make physical contact with the GPU chip. I don't like the idea of using a shim between my cold plate and GPU chip so I guess I'll be modifying a GPU in the near future.

It certainly would be easier and less risky to use an air cooler but the aftermarket ones cost about the same as one of the Corsair 120mm liquid coolers. As for mounting a cold plate/pump unit, I think what I want to do is take some measurements and do some 3D drawing to see if I can come up with a 'retainer plate' design, with a fan right beside it to blow air over the VRM's and RAM. This will allow me to use a 120mm fan on the 'other' GPU card parts instead of strapping down a 92mm with zip ties or whatever. It's going to be an adventure but it will also be fun and I'll not have to spend tons of money to get upgrades!

 

[Conumdrum]

A few have done it here. Have you found the posts on that? I think one was on the front page even.

Good GPU air coolers are too thick for SLI, But they are pretty much very very quiet. I'd go that route, easier.

 

[Negatron]

A few have done it here. Have you found the posts on that? I think one was on the front page even.

Good GPU air coolers are too thick for SLI, But they are pretty much very very quiet. I'd go that route, easier.

I did look around for related threads but I wasn't able to find anything exactly relevant. I did find some stuff out the WWW and what I found, basically, was that there is only one 'works out of the box' solution, which I don't want to use.

I won't be doing Crossfire with my current rig since my MoBo doesn't support it. Well, technically, it does but the other PCIe slot is 2.0 X4 so it is a waste of money at best. If I want to crossfire I would have to upgrade my motherboard. My only two options are upgrading to liquid or bigger air, or upgrading to a 7970. Since liquid cooling is so cool (huhu) and potentially quieter than air cooling a bigger card I pretty much have my heart set on using a liquid cooler.

 

[Knufire]

A sealed liquid unit won't be quieter than a triple slot GPU heatsink, not unless you get quality aftermarket fans.

 

[Negatron]

A sealed liquid unit won't be quieter than a triple slot GPU heatsink, not unless you get quality aftermarket fans.

I will be using either one or two 140mm(26dbm) or 120mm(29dbm) PWM fans. If I go with one fan it will be inside the back panel of my case.

 

[Conumdrum]

If your heart is set on it, then do it.

 

[Negatron]

I'm pretty surprised that all of the already established liquid cooler manufacturers aren't already on this! What a huge leap in business would they all see just by getting their engineering departments on adapting their products to GPUs?!

Well, anyway, after a week of gaming on my current machine I'm already tired of listening to my 7870s one fan trying to keep up with the heat load of an overwhelmed peewee model heat sink. I feel like overclocking the card with even a big aftermarket solid heat sink is going one step too short so I'll be adapting a sealed liquid cooler to my 7870.

I hope some more people will see this thread who have experience in doing this kind of modification because I really have no idea which one is best for this application. There are a couple threads out there describing other peoples adventures with this sort of thing but I don't know if that actually helps me decide what is best for me!

 

[EarthDog]

Your screen tearing problem is due to not having V-sync enabled. It's not a defective card. Turn V-sync on and you solve your problem. You don't need to liquid cool that card to fix that.

The picture he posted has nothing to do with vsync. Vsync tearing issue look like this:

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_9.html

I'm pretty surprised that all of the already established liquid cooler manufacturers aren't already on this! What a huge leap in business would they all see just by getting their engineering departments on adapting their products to GPUs?!

Well, anyway, after a week of gaming on my current machine I'm already tired of listening to my 7870s one fan trying to keep up with the heat load of an overwhelmed peewee model heat sink. I feel like overclocking the card with even a big aftermarket solid heat sink is going one step too short so I'll be adapting a sealed liquid cooler to my 7870.

I hope some more people will see this thread who have experience in doing this kind of modification because I really have no idea which one is best for this application. There are a couple threads out there describing other peoples adventures with this sort of thing but I don't know if that actually helps me decide what is best for me!

The problem is getting it to fit. There are so many different models and tweaks to the PCB that a block that fits on one, will not fit on another.

I dont think you have any other choice but to get after market air or a full 'mini' loop.

 

[tungureanu]

Here you go.

 

[EarthDog]

Here you go.

That is what we reviewed, but thought it only fit the 7970... but it fits others. Hopefully it fits his specific 7870... THAT is the key.

 

[tungureanu]

Compatibility:
AMD Radeon: HD 7870, 7850, 6970, 6950, 6870, 6850, 6790, 6770, 5870, 5850, 5830, 4890, 4870, 4850

NVIDIA GeForce: GTX 680, 670, 660Ti, 580, 570, 560Ti, 560 SE, 560, 550Ti, 480, 470, 465, 460 SE, 460, GTS 450

I personally would either do a cutom loop or air cool with arctic extreme 3.

 

[EarthDog]

Thanks, knew that...Note, all 7870's (all cards) are not the same. Custom PCBs could make it not fit. He needs to know he has a reference 7870 or email/call Arctic to see if it fits with his specific model.

Notice I said, "Hopefully it fits his specific 7870... THAT is the key."

 

[Negatron]

The picture he posted has nothing to do with vsync. Vsync tearing issue look like this:

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_9.html


I dont think you have any other choice but to get after market air or a full 'mini' loop.

Now that I have a better understanding of what screen tearing is, I don't think it is my problem. Now I'm a little worried that I should return my 7870 for an exchange and I only have a few more days to do so. Is there a way to really check my card for defects? Maybe I run it at full rate rate/100% load for a couple hours? I need to find out if the card is going to fail in the near future while I still have time to return it.

I'm pretty sure I can get a sealed liquid cooler to work but maybe it's best to spend $123 on the ready made system and the crappy plastic fan shroud and card cooler fan and just use the pump, cold plate, and radiator and replace the rest of the stuff with higher quality individual parts.

As far as I can tell, that Arctic Accelero system is just the same as a Corsair Hydro series sealed liquid cooler, maybe with a little bit differently shaped cold plate and the right bolt pattern for the retainer. The radiator fan that comes with that thing is only a two pin model so I assume it isn't speed controlled and fan noise is something I'm trying to get away from.
I'll make the decision on my next round of ordering parts I guess.

 

[EarthDog]

So you would rather mod than make a phone call/email to see if a product made specifically for that fits? Your choice!

As far as that artifacting goes. Does that happen immediately? After a while? Have you tried the newest drivers? If you are on the newest, rolled back a version, two? Does it happen in games?