Liquid Cooling Of Graphic Cards ?

Robert11 · 07 Nov 2015

Hello,

Looking at probably getting a new desktop PC.
No gaming.
Just typical household usage; internet, Photos, etc.

I noticed that several of the graphic card offerings seem to have liquid cooling.

Hard to believe that any liquid they use stays stable and effective over a few years, but maybe ?

What is the state of the art these days with liquid cooling of graphic boards ?
History and reliability, etc. ?

If liquid, anything to be concerned about ?
Best to stay away from ? Caveats ?

My old card's fan conked out a while back.
Was able to get a very cheap replacement card, no fan, that is working well.

Have the cards that are Not liquid cooled finally coming thru as non-fan, but really sizable
heat sinks that are "truly" adequate ?

Thanks,
B.

ThrashZone · 07 Nov 2015

Hi,
No need to abandon your other thread

As far as liquid cooled gpu's or otherwise there's always the possibility of leaks but most will have a pretty good warrantee
I got one of these
EVGA - Products - EVGA GeForce GTX 980 HYBRID GAMING - 04G-P4-1989-KR
It was in a new build I did but replaced it and installed it in my Acer rig which I do most work and some graphic's work which the advantage of liquid cooling is it's pretty silent opposed to pure air cooling fans
The liquid cooled have radiators with a fan or two but they run at a much lower rpm

So far I like it
It's not the greatest card in benchmarks but it's new technology and can play just about any game provided the cpu and ram are capable of playing the game which now I believe they are :)

You either do the upgrades in a new machine or you do them later
In your case I wouldn't guess any liquid cooled anything would be necessary.

Even cpu liquid coolers are the same concept they are for the most part silent and keep temps down at least 12c lower opposed to air cooling.

Here's the new beast in town :)
Hydro GFX Liquid Cooled Graphics Card

wasnotwas · 08 Nov 2015

@ Robert11 - cooling for gfx cards tends to run like this:

passive (no fan) : regular use - browsing, Photoshop etc. No fan means silent, so good if you use pc to watch movies etc
fan : normal gaming - heavy video processing generates heat, hence fan required
liquid cooled : intense gaming - generates even more heat. Liquid cooling is more efficient

since the OP says 'No gaming. Just typical household usage; internet, Photos, etc.', a passive or small fan gfx card would suffice (or even onboard graphics).

I have this liquid cpu cooler on one of my machines. I did a before and after test using Cinebench and agree with ThrashZone's info - I saw a 12-15C drop in cpu temp. Regular cpu (and gfx) cooling fans just put the hot air in the case. Liquid coolers dump the hot air outside the case - a better engineering solution. After fitting the liquid cooler, I was able to turn off some of the case fans, which meant less dust inside the case and thus less maintenance.

AddRAM · 08 Nov 2015

There`s no reason to go liquid with your intentions, it would be a total waste of money.