Gpu only waterblock worth it??

farmerboy-86 · 19 Jul 2015 at 01:36

hey guys i have a corsair 540 air with red black theme and i have cpu on custom loop along with mbob but my gpu looks out of place lol

its fine on temps but want whole system water cooled looks more than anything

im planning to change to rigid tube build and wanna know takes on gpu only block, worth it??

i have a msi r9 390 but they dont do full cover unless im looking in wrong place lol

any help be awesome

tyler_jrb · 19 Jul 2015 at 03:27

it depends really. A waterblock on the GPU will remove noise, keep temps low and remove any throttling. If you re flash the bios you can squeeze the performance out of it while remaining cool. Up to you to decide if that is worth the price overall.

Plus it will look better in your system and keep temps in the case cooler thus helping the whole loop in general. Especially if you have a radiator on the roof.

farmerboy-86 · 19 Jul 2015 at 10:10

What best way to cool vrm heat sinks? I have two 140mm fans on bottom of my air 540 (custom mod) so air is going straight into gpu will that be enough cooling I'm worried temps will be worse

MrMD · 19 Jul 2015 at 15:37

farmerboy-86 said:
What best way to cool vrm heat sinks? I have two 140mm fans on bottom of my air 540 (custom mod) so air is going straight into gpu will that be enough cooling I'm worried temps will be worse

Yea you would be fine running a thermosphere on the card in this config,with heatsinks on the VRMs.As you would have direct cool airflow of the VRM section of the card

farmerboy-86 · 19 Jul 2015 at 17:57

MrMD said:
Yea you would be fine running a thermosphere on the card in this config,with heatsinks on the VRMs.As you would have direct cool airflow of the VRM section of the card

cool cheers for reply i cut bottom out where ssd goes as you know seeing you have same case, mainly did it to get positive airflow as this case has a lot of vents for dust lol

mind made up will do it, will add a pic or two when done next weekend cheers buddy

oh one more thing the thermosphere says i need a extra plate for mounting to my gpu where can i get one??

cant see one on overclockers unfortunately

MrMD · 19 Jul 2015 at 18:09

farmerboy-86 said:
cool cheers for reply i cut bottom out where ssd goes as you know seeing you have same case, mainly did it to get positive airflow as this case has a lot of vents for dust lol

mind made up will do it, will add a pic or two when done next weekend cheers buddy

oh one more thing the thermosphere says i need a extra plate for mounting to my gpu where can i get one??

cant see one on overclockers unfortunately

Im doing pretty much the same thing,have a thermosphere on my 970.I have HDD's in the drive bays,so i just have a a fan mounted on top on of the drives to cool the vrms

To get the mounting plate your best bet is to order directly off of the EK website.

farmerboy-86 · 19 Jul 2015 at 19:32

MrMD said:
Im doing pretty much the same thing,have a thermosphere on my 970.I have HDD's in the drive bays,so i just have a a fan mounted on top on of the drives to cool the vrms

To get the mounting plate your best bet is to order directly off of the EK website.

i got excited with my shiny new dremel and cut bottom out could have gone your route i guess whould of saved on dust haha but posative air flow was hard to achieve the way im set up rad fans almost ticking over so chucked two af140 in bottom helps huge amount tbh

doing rigid tube in mine red black theme trying to get some kinda dragon vinyl wrapp for case panels red/black im a bit of a msi amd nut lol

i have sprayed pci blank plates and mesh grills red just panels to wrap and rigid tube whhich should arrive this week

will chheck website out cheers

Trunkey · 20 Jul 2015 at 16:51

In the op your card is quite new and may in time get a block made for it.
I used an alphacool gpu only block for a while, it cost £27 and kept my over clocked R9 270x at 45'c under load. Half the price of the EK Thermasphere for very similar cooling might be worth consideration whilst waiting to see if any full blocks come along.
I've just got a 290x and due to not finding any EK full blocks have gone with alphacool for this card.

fastboy · 20 Jul 2015 at 16:58

i strapped a thermaltake AIO cooler on my GTX980 which used to throttle at 80c..now it idles at 28c and never goes above 55c even when maxed out and is silent...ive sadly now got the WC bug lol

farmerboy-86 · 20 Jul 2015 at 17:38

Trunkey said:
In the op your card is quite new and may in time get a block made for it.
I used an alphacool gpu only block for a while, it cost £27 and kept my over clocked R9 270x at 45'c under load. Half the price of the EK Thermasphere for very similar cooling might be worth consideration whilst waiting to see if any full blocks come along.
I've just got a 290x and due to not finding any EK full blocks have gone with alphacool for this card.

Cheers that's worth knowing will check them out did you require additional mounting plate like ek thermosphere needs??

Ek config website says no plans to make one hopefully they will

Trunkey · 20 Jul 2015 at 21:23

The block I used was "Alphacool HF 14 GPU ATI NVIDIA Smart Motion Universal Copper Edition" its reckoned to fit an awful lot of GPU's then you add heat sinks and stuff to deal with ram and mosfets. It did a great job and everything to mount it was in the box.
I will post up when I fit my "Alphacool NexXxoS GPX" block and see how that goes, reviews elsewhere show that it sits between 2-4'c warmer than a full EK block.
Under load on a heavily clocked and over-volted GTX 970 the core was at 46'C in BF3.

farmerboy-86 · 20 Jul 2015 at 21:29

Cool thanks had a look at them alphacool offer a free service where you pay to post your gpu to them and the scan it to be able to produce blocks fir that card and you get a free block but that means sending it to germany and it takes a month turn around. My friend had a friend that did it on his msi 280x card

It doesn't seem bad cost him £20 tracked and he got a full cover block worth £80 ish

Unsure tbh?

Trunkey · 20 Jul 2015 at 22:31

Well it's a good deal and would give you a tale to tell about owning block number 1.
If someone has beaten you to it then at least you will be able to buy a water block.
I think I would go for it if I had the chance.

farmerboy-86 · 20 Jul 2015 at 23:19

Trunkey said:
Well it's a good deal and would give you a tale to tell about owning block number 1.
If someone has beaten you to it then at least you will be able to buy a water block.
I think I would go for it if I had the chance.

looked into it on web the claim no responsibility for any gpu damage i know they make blocks and deal with cards but im worried about risking my card going to germany

but block for £20 isn't bad deal

Trunkey · 20 Jul 2015 at 23:50

Seriously??
Alphacool an entire company are going to publicly argue about wrecking a £350 graphics card?
I don't think so!

Trunkey · 20 Jul 2015 at 23:53

I know it's easy to say but if it was mine I would send it.
Why not ask the forum members to pledge a quid each to support it then you can give it to 8pack to see if its a good cooler (more bragging rights) and finally get your card and new cooler back!
Tell you what I pledge £10 to the cause.

farmerboy-86 · 21 Jul 2015 at 00:40

You could be on to something there buddy

The block is like all there other full block with the fin type heat sink all over block

I might bite the bullet and send it off get a free block from it and helps many more with same card in my shoes

pastymuncher · 21 Jul 2015 at 09:59

farmerboy-86 said:
Cool thanks had a look at them alphacool offer a free service where you pay to post your gpu to them and the scan it to be able to produce blocks fir that card and you get a free block but that means sending it to germany and it takes a month turn around. My friend had a friend that did it on his msi 280x card

It doesn't seem bad cost him £20 tracked and he got a full cover block worth £80 ish

Unsure tbh?

It's not a full block you get with that service. It's a universal block with a cooling plate and backplate. I think it's only the first person that sends a particular card in that get's it free as after the first card it's listed on their website for people to buy. I wish I knew about this when I got my 780. See here.

That Alphacool HF 14 is a very basic block. It's just a straight in and out block and has terrible inlet/outlet positioning. While it my do the job I would rather have the Thermosphere (especially with a high end card) which is a derivative of the cpu block and uses a jet plate design. The biggest drawback is that EK have taken a step backwards and make you buy a extra bracket to fit AMD cards unlike it's predecessor the Supreme VGA which will fit most cards.

farmerboy-86 · 21 Jul 2015 at 18:12

pastymuncher said:
It's not a full block you get with that service. It's a universal block with a cooling plate and backplate. I think it's only the first person that sends a particular card in that get's it free as after the first card it's listed on their website for people to buy. I wish I knew about this when I got my 780. See here.

That Alphacool HF 14 is a very basic block. It's just a straight in and out block and has terrible inlet/outlet positioning. While it my do the job I would rather have the Thermosphere (especially with a high end card) which is a derivative of the cpu block and uses a jet plate design. The biggest drawback is that EK have taken a step backwards and make you buy a extra bracket to fit AMD cards unlike it's predecessor the Supreme VGA which will fit most cards.

Thanks for your info great help and I was misled ti believe it was a full block thankyou.

I think I'm gonna stick with the thermosphere block myself, shame about having to by a separate plate but its only £7 euros on there website so nit breaking the bank lol

Trunkey · 24 Jul 2015 at 21:22

So I have this evening fitted my Alphacool NexXxoS GPX to my sapphire R9 290x.
Fitting went smoothly although I have to say its a bit complex and lots of thermal pads.
Anyway the card is currently 5% overclocked on both core and memory and underload (Folding)we are at 50'c
GPU sits after my CPU in the loop which is currently at 4.5Ghz and at 58-60'C.
Happy at the moment but I suspect I will soon be adding a some more rad space as at the moment I have a total of 480mm (1x360 & 1x120).