Water cooling a GTX280

Geckovich · 27 Feb 2009 at 13:48

Who has water cooled their GTX280?

What block did you use?

Are the RAM sink backplates necessary?

Basically I have my new water cooling loop (minus GPU block) sat at home waiting to be installed, only I don't know what to order as reviews seem a little sparse.

Thanks in advance Gents.

Bubo · 27 Feb 2009 at 14:26

Unless the water block you get allows you to re-use the existing metal backplate as part of its attatchment mechanism then yes you do need an extra ram sinks for the back ram chips. Either as a dedicated plate or individual stick on ram sinks. I suppose you could get away with having a high cfm blowing directly at the back of the card without any ram sinks, but ram sinks are easy to get and fit so there is no excuse. Personally I went for the separate dtek fusion gfx2 gpu block and enzotech copper ram/mosfer sink combo, as I plan on re-using the block for several gcard upgrades, and imo you dump less heat into the loop by water cooling the only bit which really needs it. It definately is more fiddly than a full cover block though. Beware if you get the Swiftech mcw60 gpu block and its dedicated full front ram sink (GT200), as they stupidly missed out a space on the ram sink for one of the mosfets, which ends up with it not touching the ram sink and thus reciving no cooling. You would have to double up the supplied thermal tape to fill the gap.

Geckovich · 27 Feb 2009 at 14:35

Cheers Bubo, that's exactly the kind of info I was after. I'll look into the dtek and enxotech combo.

Edit:

Bubo said:
Unless the water block you get allows you to re-use the existing metal backplate as part of its attatchment mechanism then yes you do need an extra ram sinks for the back ram chips.

I don't suppose there's a list of these anywhere? A few minutes googling has failed me.

Bubo · 27 Feb 2009 at 14:44

Bare in mind that unless things have changed the dtek fusion does not come with gtx280 size fitting gear and the official dtek gear is virtually impossible to find in this country. I basically got the separate Swiftech 280 mounting plate and modified it to fit my dtek, and also made my own backplate. If you want to go the gpu/ramsink route it might be better to go all swiftech as you can get all the bits you need fairly easily from suppilers in the uk, just be aware of the mosfet thing I mention above. You will need the mcw60 block, 280 mounting plate and the full cover ram sink. Others will say a full cover block is less hassle, and it definately is, but it is not reusable between cards, so it depends on what your priorities are.

Geckovich · 27 Feb 2009 at 15:07

I think as it stands now I'll go for a full cover block as I intend to keep this card for quite some time. I might try and find one that can be used with the stock backplate though as you suggested.

Thanks again for your help Bubo.

Fireskull · 27 Feb 2009 at 15:12

Ive got the EK-VGA Supreme block on mine and it cools it really well, just got some little heatsinks stuck to the memory and kept the standard backplate on the back, all good temps apart from the Voltage stuff, so have bought the swiftech 280 full face heatsinks think and hopefully it will fit with my EK block, if not I will be modding it

Will keep your comments in mind Bubo, u know which mosfet it is? or is it obvious to see?

Bubo · 27 Feb 2009 at 15:35

If you did go the enzotech sink route it would end up looking like this. I will stress again, it is nowhere near as straight forward as a full cover block, so given you say you will be keeping the card for a long while it is probably a good idea to go full cover.

Bubo · 27 Feb 2009 at 15:45

Fireskull said:
Will keep your comments in mind Bubo, u know which mosfet it is? or is it obvious to see?

On the gtx280 there are 7 vrm chips. 6 that are staggered and one which sticks out on its own. Counting from the bottom of the card the 3rd staggered one is the one which does not have a corresponding raised pad on the swiftech unisink. It is a glaring design flaw which they may well have fixed in the current unisinks available now. It is possible the unisink was designed with the gtx260 in mind which may or may not have a mostfet there, I haven't checked. I know all this cos I bought this unisink and spent ages modding it with a dremel to fit the dtek, only then to notice the missing mostfet pad. I read on another forum that you can still use it by doubling up the thermal pads for this one mosfet but I didn't like the idea of that so I thought, sod it, just throw a load of sinks at it and be done with it. Its a shame but the official dtek unisinks for the 280 are simply not available in this country for some reason.

Geckovich · 27 Feb 2009 at 15:47

There's been a lot of effort and care put into that card, it looks really nice with the black PCB and delicate looking copper sinks.

I think the full block route is the way to go.

I'm hoping the 280 can last as well as the 8800gtx which still holds it's own nowadays.

I'm now looking for a full block that can be used with the stock back plate, though I'm tempted by EK's full block and separate backplate if this isn't feasible.

Fireskull · 28 Feb 2009 at 07:02

Nice pics Bubo good job

Yea its still missing on this heatsink too, will remember to double up then

Did you make the small heatsinks yourself? and did you use thermal adhesive?

Bubo · 28 Feb 2009 at 09:22

No the small heatsinks come in a set specifically for mosfets. However, the vrm chips on the gtx280 seem like they are coated with teflon and the thermal tape which comes in the set does not stick them to the chips very well such that they could easily come off in use. Instead I bought the thermal tape which ocuk do which seems to be a fair bit stickier. To make sure none of them would come off, after I put the sink on the chips and made sure it was fairly secure I put a very small dab of silicone rubber on opposite corners of each sink so that it is impossible for it to fall off under its own weight when the card is in the case. These sinks are a bit tricky though as you have to be careful they don't touch any of the resistors around the chips. I just cut an oversided bit of thermal tape and sort of wrapped it up the sides of the base to form an insulation layer to be sure.

Fireskull · 28 Feb 2009 at 09:56

Ah ok, yea I tried to put some of my small heatsinks on with thermal tape stuff but they fell off so I gave up lol, will just give this Full cover heatsink a go

Good job with your method though!

Darkman · 28 Feb 2009 at 12:20

I'm using the Swiftech MCW60 on my GTX280 (with a GT200 Adaptor kit of course). It uses the existing back plate, so you only need to fit heat sinks on the RAM and mosfets on the front side. I'm using Enzotech BMR-C1 and MOS-C1 copper sinks on mine.

It's an absolute doddle to fix, gives better temps than a full cover block, and can be moved easily onto another graphics card (this is the 3rd card I've used it on).

Full cover blocks look pretty, but they don't really stack up on cost or performance or even fitting. How difficult is it to stick on a RAM sink?

P

Jokester · 28 Feb 2009 at 12:34

The RAM doesn't need any cooling on them at all, don't worry about them.

Darkman · 28 Feb 2009 at 12:49

Bubo said:
...However, the vrm chips on the gtx280 seem like they are coated with teflon and the thermal tape which comes in the set does not stick them to the chips very well...

ArctiClean Thermal Material Remover and Surface Purifier does the job of cleaning and preparing the surface very well I've found. I've not had to resort to anything other than the adhesive tape that comes with the mosfet sinks as a result (I've actually removed them from my 9800GTX and put them on the GTX 280 and they still stick fine).

P

Bubo · 28 Feb 2009 at 18:15

I used a can of degreaser from my strain gauging days, if that stuff doesn't get rid of any surface nasties nothing will. It may be this particular brand of 280 that seemed to have non-stick vrm chips. I say non stick, they did stick fairly well but any significant nudge and they came off so I didn't trust them to stay on with them facing down, hence the use of silicone rubber too.

Geckovich · 28 Feb 2009 at 18:26

After yet more thinking and research I think the cheaper )and more economical in the long term) route for me to go would be to get the swiftech MCW60, gtx200 adapter kit and the all in one heatsink (to save with hassle really).

Now I just have to ask OcUK if they can get them in, or try and find them elsewhere in the UK.