Looking for a good Water Cooling Solution for Graphics

1strail · 12 Jun 2011

Because of my impulse buying habits and assisted by a one, Robert Mondavi, I have managed to buy a mother board for my i7-2600k CPU whose engineering department should be callocative taken out back and flogged. I am talking about the Gigbyte 67A-UD7. Don't get me wrong, this board has many redeeming qualities, but expansion board placement isn't one of them.
Long story short, I cannot position my 2 XFX-5870 (in X-fire) in any of the PCIe slots (16 or 8) that does not cause a high heat environment with the addition of a PCIeX1 sound card, The best configuration I can find, still has the sound card covering have of the fan on the primary graphics board.
The board isn't bad, but they left no concievable way of doing this so I am now in the market for GPU water cooling kit. Really don't ned the CPU to particippate in the new cooling setup beause it working perfectly fine OC'd to 4.2 with a corsair H-50 in push/pull config.
I am really looking for those of you out there who amy have done this already. My case is Silerstone TJ-10 and can support a 240mm radiator mounted nicely below the 2-120mm top case fans.
I would love to hear suggestions on VGA (GPU) coolers that will allow me to have 2 double slot graphics cards right next to each other with no problems. A kit preferably. Cost is important but not the big determining factor.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

simmo · 13 Jun 2011

your in the states theres these. http://www.koolance.com/water-coolin...roduct_id=1022

Getting a little hard to find now seeing the card is superseded....however you need to be careful buying waterblocks for cards, particularly full cover cards like the one above...that WB I have linked will fit a non reference design ATI card where most do not. Nearly all aftermarket full cover cards are made for use on refence design cards so CHECK it out with your retailer.
You will need to get a bridge to join the cards (Waterblocks) and quality compression fittings preferably (barbs will do tho)

Koolance have a good rep regarding quality and blocks that work well as do

DangerDen...AquagraFX (german) and EK.

cheers

1strail · 13 Jun 2011

Thank you Simmo for the info. I did notice your point about the blocks for reference designs as I was poking around on the various retail sites. That is partly why I went to the board, also to save time. Very good info and thanks again!

profdlp · 13 Jun 2011

This one got good reviews and will do the whole shebang:

Micro Center - Larkooler Universal High Performance Complete CPU Liquid Cooling Kit (BA2-241) EX-WAT-155

Also available online, if you're not near a MicroCenter. :)

The main thing is to check your hardware carefully before buying. Most video cards are standard and easy to find waterblocks for. The CPU is (usually) almost as easy, depending on the motherboard. The North Bridge is where it can get a little tricky.

simmo · 14 Jun 2011

profdlp said:

This one got good reviews and will do the whole shebang:

Micro Center - Larkooler Universal High Performance Complete CPU Liquid Cooling Kit (BA2-241) EX-WAT-155

Also available online, if you're not near a MicroCenter. :)

The main thing is to check your hardware carefully before buying. Most video cards are standard and easy to find waterblocks for. The CPU is (usually) almost as easy, depending on the motherboard. The North Bridge is where it can get a little tricky.

Wouldn't touch that with a bargepole..

And fyi most cards released after the initial run of reference cards are not standard..soon as a manufacturer has added there own cooling solutions the cards have in most cases had the layouts altered and full cover W/B will no longer fit.

If you use a W/B made by e.g Danger Den then it's a matter of putting individual passive cooled blocks on the memory. Full cover blocks cool the memory actively and therefore work/cool much better than just a GPU block/passive cooled mem.

The factory made cooling solutions like your link and the Corsair H series and Antec Kuhler etc are second rate at best and serve as in introduction for ppl not used to watercooling. I have a H70 fitted atm to my CPU,it's been modded and quite frankly works no better than the TRUE 120 Extreme air cooler it replaced. I plan on replacing it with a Koolance block.
Secondly the pumps on the prebuilt ones are crap..they work sorta but dedicated pumps work much better. Same story with radiators...

cheers

setan berdasi · 14 Jun 2011

If you want high quality and high guarantee, also high performance

EK

:)

simmo · 14 Jun 2011

setan berdasi said:

If you want high quality and high guarantee, also high performance

EK

:)

EK are having issues with the nickel plating on the blocks coming off atm...OCAU guys are trying to figure out what is causing it...

EK say its the coolant but general consensus is it's shit plating.

Having said that EK have been in biz for a long time and their gear is used widely..I'd just be steering clear of the nickel coated blocks atm...they make straight copper ones also :)

Lordbob75 · 14 Jun 2011

Koolance nickel plates their blocks, but the inside is pure copper I believe (the nickel is more for looks on the outside)

~Lordbob