Watercooling: The Basics

[AngryAlpaca]

I tried to show what parts are the best, as well as explanation. Most of the other guides seem to be at the "Maze 3" level. Also, I figured this would be clear enough. I don't know though, I haven't had anyone who was confused yet.

 

[BladeRunner]

As birdmun said I've been water-cooling vga ram for a while now....and don't see any reason to stop now

Water Cooling isn't always just about overclocking performance being the main driving goal. I was more after fanless silence with everything effectively cooled........ any fully stable overclocking is an extra bonus.

In most situations vga ram can be cooled fairly effectively with good sinks, but they will require decent airflow to work. When you have a zero airflow system, other than natural heat rise convection, things that don't normally get hot or even warm can get very very hot over time.

Water-cooling vga ram is also useful for the much hotter running DDR 2 chips top end cards are now using, and especially when volt modding.

I've also water-cooled the mobo powerfets as they were getting far to hot. I tried a passive sink solution with little effect, a water block with sub ambient coolant, more than halved the operating temps.

9700 Pro full water cooler

 

[AngryAlpaca]

These aren't for retail sale, are they? You made them yourself? I do believe that everything should be watercooled, but it isn't always feasible, for those who can't use machining equipment. Well, I have seen one block that cools your video RAM, but it's aluminum, and 100 bucks, USD. Unfortuneately, it just doesn't seem feasible to cool those things right now.

 

[BladeRunner]

Yes they are home made one offs, but there are a few products out there and what may be costly to you might not for the next person.... its all relative. I was more countering this:-

"No, you cannot water-cool your video RAM"

You can water-cool any part but some areas would need custom blocks, or possibly modifications to commercial blocks and / or the mounting hardware to fit.

Along with the Gainward / Innovatek one piece gpu ram block (that doesn't water-cool the backside ram), there are these.