GPU water cooling choices

[Jeff G]

Now that my 1070 is officially gone, I'm going to pull the trigger on a 1080 ti this week.
Based on the fact that I want to water cool, here's the choices I've considered and I'm unsure where to go.

1. Buy the cheapest card I can and add a full water block. Is there any upside to this? Maybe lower cost on the used market?

2. Buy a card with a waterblock already on it. Cost seems less, with a $700 card being the cheapest on NE and a $140 block from EKWB vs a $820 card with a waterblock already on it like the Zotac ArcticStorm. Any downside to this vs installing a block on a card?

3. Buy a AIO gpu like the waterforce that cools the whole card, requires no extra plumbing, and has a 4 year warranty. Upside - Least cost ($820 on NE) and least work involved setting it up. Downside - if the pump fails, can I splice in new lines and route my current loop through it?

I'm really liking the waterforce AIO card for its simplicity and nice warranty. Is there any major upside to running the card in my current CPU loop vs the AIO setup? I can't find a reason for option 1 over option 2, so if there's something I'm missing please let me know.

 

[Robert17]

My very biased viewpoint: I run an AIO on my R9 290X, a TT Performer 3.0 and have had no issues to date; mounted it with an NZXT kit, dropped card temps 30°C. The first AIO I had mounted on it started to get hot so I retired it (H60) and put in the TT. Got the Seahawk version of the 1070 so it came preassembled, again, no issues. Have H100 & H90 on my CPUs. Boring, no issues. If one pump goes out, I don't lose anything else in the rigs. My thinking & 2 ¢.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

If you want to expand to your existing loop, you'll should be fine. Just your temps won't be as good since you're adding more load which will need more rad if you choose to but don't have to. That is all up to you.

The other thing is, either go with a GPU with a block already installed to it or pay attention to the warranty policy before you go installing one.

 

[Jeff G]

A little more simple question now.
Waterblock on the gpu.
I have two choices for cooling.
Put the GPU on its own loop with 120mm radiator and a second small pump/res combo or add to the current CPU loop with 3x120mm radiator.
i7-6700k overclocked, GPU will be overclocked as well.
Is either option going to be clearly better at cooling? Or should I just go with whatever looks better?
As a third, less desirable option, I could add the 120mm radiator to the 360mm radiator. Tube routing would look pretty bad due to radiator location, and I'm not sure if my pump could handle the extra volume without adding a lot of stress to it.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Assuming this is on a Rosewill Rise case with the 360mm rad positioned to the front, I would just add a 240mm up top and call it a day. Should be more than enough for a CPU + GPU loop.

 

[Jeff G]

Assuming this is on a Rosewill Rise case with the 360mm rad positioned to the front, I would just add a 240mm up top and call it a day. Should be more than enough for a CPU + GPU loop.

View attachment 192348

I have my res mounted in the 5.25 drive bays, there's not enough room to fit a 240mm radiator up there unless I got a whole new res and pump setup. I'm thinking of adding a 140mm radiator on the top left (back of case) of that picture. I'm thinking it'll work okay without looking too messy. I've got to measure to make sure the radiator and fan would both fit without interfering with the motherboard.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

A 120mm or 140mm would be fine. I personally prefer 120mm's in rads because of the fan options but either or is fine. You should be good regardless which ever you go with.

 

[Jeff G]

Well, $95 later and I should be set. Got an additional 140mm radiator, 140mm radiator fan, and some fittings and hose to try and add it to my current loop. Here's to hoping it turns out and doesnt look like a mess of tubing!

 

[Jeff G]

Oh Amazon, how I hate you. My card delivered today. Two fittings and my new fan are "Packing" but not shipped. The other two fittings and the new radiator are still "Processing". And all items were labeled as In Stock, all items were stocked/shipped by Amazon, and everything was even from the same seller. I should have just sucked it up and paid the extra from PPCS, now I get to stare at a half assembled PC on my weekend off.
One more week until I'm back up and running!

 

[Nebulous]

Hang in there!

 

[Jeff G]

Well, one of my four fittings, as well as the fan, have shipped. Two fittings and the radiator are still "Processing". Fourth fitting is just in limbo I guess. Here's to hoping it all ships some time in the next few days. Fingers Crossed!

 

[Jeff G]

All my parts finally arrived last night (took three separate packages spread out over a week of delivery). Unfortunately, I ran into yet another hurdle.

Well, I think Rosewill needs to re-evaluate what constitutes a 140mm radiator location. The rear 140mm radiator location on the Rosewill Rise case does not actually fit a 140mm radiator. I should have measured first, I know, but I just took their word for it and never gave it a second thought. The case came with a 140mm fan pre-installed on the rear 140mm location, and the fan fits with no extra room on any sides. That should have been my giveaway that a 140mm radiator would not fit. It's both too tall and too wide, so even if I cut away some of the supports for vertical fitment, it wouldn't fit width wise between the edge of the case and the MB. For anyone looking at the Rosewill Rise cases, know that the rear 140mm spot will fit a fan but not a radiator (120mm radiator would have fit fine).
So, I began looking for alternate solutions. I thought about mounting it externally on the rear 140mm opening, but I can't bring myself to have tubes running on the outside of my case. I pulled the top of the case off and removed my two 140mm exhause fans. I can get the radiator up top with both fans removed. Again, they list this as fitting a 280mm radiator and the only way that would be possible is with the ports on the end with the 5.25 bays and then you could not use those bays at all. With the ports on the back side, the mounting screws do not line up as the end tank pushes it past the holes. I do not believe this case was made for 140mm (or multiples thereof) radiators. The only way to fit my 140mm radiator is to mount it on top which blocks enough space that a second fan will not fit up top (even a 120mm will not fit next to the radiator).

So here's my thoughts: I can install a 140mm exhaust fan on the rear of the case (I have quite a few spares laying around). I can attach my radiator internally to the top with a fan under it in push mode exhausting out the top of the case still. If I pull the top dust cover off, I can mount two 140mm exhaust fans on top still, one would essentially be a pull fan for the radiator and one would still be a standard exhaust fan. I don't think the dust cover is really doing much as it is the exhaust, but with it gone the fans are just sitting up top exposed to the world. Or drop another $90 on a 240mm radiator and a pair of 120mm fans and mount these to the top of case as exhaust in push only mode, effectively pushing the time until my computer is back up and running out another week.

 

[Jeff G]

For anyone following all my troubles, here's an update for you: I officially give up. My choices were between spending even more money and waiting even longer on all new radiators and fans in hopes that it might actually fit amd work or making the stuff I had work which meant mounting things to the case in less-than-ideal fashion. A little bummed over what I wanted to do, I started looking at other peoples builds and which cases they used. This lead to the realization that i just dont want to spend that kind of money on an awesome case. Which lead me to browsing my local craigslist where I spotted this beauty and scored an absolute killer deal on it.
Time to move on!

 

[batboy]

Holy cow, you found one of those huge Thermaltake towers. That thing is a monster, I shall call it.... Godzilla.

 

[Jeff G]

Holy cow, you found one of those huge Thermaltake towers. That thing is a monster, I shall call it.... Godzilla.

It certainly is a beast, I can't wait to start piecing it together!

 

[Nebulous]

Dam Jeff you lucked out big time!! You know I'll be your friend

 

[Jeff G]

I couldnt bring myself to go all hard piping, besides being way too much work (I dont have tons of free time) I also had 15' of Primochill UV Green tubing left over from my last build. So the tube routing isnt the prettiest, and the cable management isnt the best (working with what I have here, which is my non-modular psu), but I got it put together finally. This is my first water loop with a cylinder res/pump at the bottom, and my first one using two large radiators in one loop, and bleeding it took quite a bit. I think I got 99% of the air out, but I still hear a little bubble go through every once in a while so I'm going to let the pump run a solid 24 hours and see how it looks. Once I have that done, I'm going to work on modding the case just a bit. There's a few spots I want to reconfigure if I can make some plates to fit (should be easy). For now, 140mm intake fan on the bottom and 140mm exhaust on the top for the front. Three 140mm and two 120mm intakes on the back with dual 3x120mm radiators exhausting. See how that runs for now, might change the fan config up a little too.

 

[Jeff G]

Maybe it's just been too long since I've set up a new system from scratch, but should the CPU temp be bouncing around a ton at idle?
For the most part, it sits about 4 degrees above ambient. But every once in a while it jumps up to 70c. All four cores do it.
At 100% CPU utilization, even after a few minutes it seems to stay right around 40-44c (gaming). It's just those brief jumps I'm uncertain about. Even Prime95 sits right around 68-70c on all 4 cores.
And either my GPU temp reading isn't right, or I'm sitting at 1c over ambient at idle. Haven't pushed it yet, but a brief gaming run topped her out at 10c over ambient.
I'm going to push it a bit longer running some some stuff that should use CPU and GPU both to see where it sits and how much the loop will heat up with both running.

 

[Jeff G]

Time got away from me last night, and since I had to be up at 5:30 for work today I only played around with it a bit more last night. I really wanted to get something like TimeSpy running, but it was going to take 20+ minutes to download and I didn't want to stay up that late so I downloaded the Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool (with stress test) and Furmark since they were both small files and only took a minute to download.
The Intel test ran the CPU at 100% for the duration of the test and ran right around 45c the entire time, with the continued random 1/10 second jumps to 73c. (Passed all the tests, hooray!)
After running Furmark three times at the highest resolution it had with 8x AA, I got the GPU up to 34c. Still impressed with how good this is cooling. Right out of the box, no driver updates, no software, just plugged it in and went, it was boosting to 1987mhz with memory at 11112mhz. I was hoping it would 'boost' a bit more with such low temps, but I'll play around with manually bumping it up tonight when I have more time.
For reference, ambient temps in the room are right around 22c. The house is set at 26c, but the PC is in the basement where it stays between 21 and 23c depending on when the last time the AC ran (thermostat is upstairs). GPU idles at 23c, even with the CPU tests warming up the water it still sits right at 23c. CPU idles right around 28-29c.
For the sheer sake of making my loop simple, I ran the GPU first in the loop (after the larger of the two radiators) and the CPU second in the loop (after the smaller of the two radiators). The radiator before the CPU and the CPU waterblock are same ones on the CPU before I made the switch, the only difference is now I just have the radiator in 'push' whereas before it was push/pull. Might try going back to push/pull on the radiator before the CPU to see if I can drop the temps on the CPU another couple degrees. I kinda thought the GPU would be the warmer of the two items, but in a 15min gaming session (again, didn't have much time last night) the GPU maxed out at 32c and the CPU ran right around 44c (max was 72c, but again those were random 1/10 second jumps up to 72c).

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Just focus on load temps rather than what you see on idle. So far they look good to me.

Before you do any benching, you'll want all your drivers to be up to date.

To get a bit more accuracy on temps and benching, you'll want to run a benchmark for at least 30 mins so the loop gets saturated.