240mm Or 360mm rad?!

Greeny93

Greeny93

Greeny93

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Decided I fancy going down the watercooling route...

I stumbled across a company which does an intergrated rad/pump/res,
This seems so much noob friendlier compared to most kits!

Anyway - I'm looking at cooling the CPU ( 3820 ) and a 7970, with the view of in the future adding another 7970...

Would I be best going for a 240mm, or a 360mm? and is there much of a difference temp wise?

I have the nzxt 410, which only officially supports 240, 360 would req modding & loads of effort but is the extra 120mm needed really?

Thanks a lot :)
 
as a rough rule of thumb you want around 120mm per 110watts of device you want to cool... this gives you very good temps with low fan speeds... if you start going above this then you need faster fans which either means expensive fans or noisy ones

that CPU plus a 7970 I think you will need a 360... to add another 7970 as well I would suggest adding another 240mm as well

if you really only have space for a 240mm then I would suggest making it a very very thick one (if that will fit) but even then you are going to need some hefty fans, or you could leave the CPU on air and just cool watercool the 7970

but I will leave it for someone that has those 2 components on say a 240 or 360 to confirm or deny this, you might just get away with it
 
3820 + 2 x 7970 you want to be looking at a decent 360 bare minimum IMO, even better a 360 + 120 setup.

But it also depends what clocks you want on everything, 3820 @ 4.7ghz+ & 7970's @ 1200+ is a fair amount of heat.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Seems much more effort than anticipated !
I was hoping the one rad would do for all three... How wrong was I

To be honest, I'm not too fussed about the CPU... Even when heavily overclocked temps have always been acceptable, It's more the GPU where things start to get warm.

Any idea how much heat a single 7970 will be kicking out @ say 1300~? (Currently runs at 1175... Would want atleast a 100mhz increase to make it worth while !)

And how would a decent after-market cooler compare to a custom loop, purely for the gpu?

Thanks again.
 
I can't speak for your cpu or xfire, but in my rig with 2x240mm (80mm thick) rads with Scythe GT's @1000rpm (push) cooling a 2500k @4.5 + a 7970 at anything up to 1325, I see max 45°c on the cpu in prime and 35-37°c on the gpu when benching or in intensive gaming (Crysis 3/sleeping dogs etc).
Room temp around 21°c.

See my sig (and the accompanying thread) for aftermarket air cooling results with 7970's :)
 
Interesting read, Thanks !

Having looked at your thread on the Alpenfohn Peter... Personally I don't think the 12'c ish lower temps justify watercooling, given the cost/hastle ...

But, those things are ... HUGE ! Looked at the Prolimatech MK-26 too and thats equally massive.

Just had a look at the mobo, I basically have room for a 3x pci deep cooler, But, this would put it completely flush with the bottom 2nd gpu (Random card for 2nd monitor, purely to allow 7970 to downclock) This would surely null the effect of the cooler, and this would have course completely rule out the possibility of future xfire !

didums, seems watercooling is the only way !
 
Did you check the Arctic Accelero results from LtMatt in that thread?
Xfire's certainly doable with those.

As for the watercooling justification... Even though the temps may not seem hugely different, I can definitely say my 7970's OC ability is massively boosted.
With the Peter, although the temps were fantastic (especially the VRM's) for aircooling, I was still limited to about 1230-1240 max on the core when benching and still got artifacts or crashes.
Now, I can bench up to 1325 (so far) and still get artifacts lol, but I can do 24/7 1260-1275 if I want with no issues at all.

Obviously, it'll differ from card to card. Mine isn't a golden clocker sadly...
If the OP of that thread (LtMatt) had his card on water, it'd seriously fly as he can already do suicide run benching at 1340 with an accelero.
 
I didn't see the accelero results ! Could you point me in the right direction? can't see them anywhere :(

Hmm I see where you're coming from... nearly 100 mHz is a fair bump !

I take it with the peter, you're more "temperature limited" where as with the custom loop, it's more hitting the gpu limit?

Decisions decisions.
 
Accelero results.
Tbh, I'm not 100% sure why it wouldn't clock as high with the Peter. Temps were absolutely fine even if I chucked 1.3v into it.
Sure, they are a fair bit lower now, but they were never even close to a dangerous place before.
Either way, it's pretty much standard for cards to do a lot better underwater.
 
Thanks !
Seems the Accelero performance is pretty decent...

Temps were very similar to those of the Peter, though with slightly lower voltage.

Accelero seems like a viable option :) hmm, decisions.
 
Yeah, there are a few people here running xfire with accelero's.

Btw, Peter would've embarrassed Matt's accelero even more if my card ran at the same low voltage as his :D
 
One big rad mounted externally using quick disconnects on a stand low rpm fans will give far better temp's.

l'v just mounted my one internal rad to where my 420 rad was. The 420 use to get the heat from the PSU[case rear bottom] as it was mounted on the rear of my case and the 140 rad was effected by room ambient temp's. The 420 is now fixed by hook's on the rear of my desk , temp's have been reduced by at least 6'c as at room temp of 23'c[central heating on]. My core temp's are 54'c to 58'c +/- 1'c/GPU 50'c > gaming BLOPS II.

So have a think if you intend to build a custom loop about mounting one big rad externally, benefit's are easier installation, servicing, temps and price.

Cheer's,:)
Oldphart.
 
OLDPHART said:
One big rad mounted externally using quick disconnects on a stand low rpm fans will give far better temp's.

l'v just mounted my one internal rad to where my 420 rad was. The 420 use to get the heat from the PSU[case rear bottom] as it was mounted on the rear of my case and the 140 rad was effected by room ambient temp's. The 420 is now fixed by hook's on the rear of my desk , temp's have been reduced by at least 6'c as at room temp of 23'c[central heating on]. My core temp's are 54'c to 58'c +/- 1'c/GPU 50'c > gaming BLOPS II.

So have a think if you intend to build a custom loop about mounting one big rad externally, benefit's are easier installation, servicing, temps and price.

Cheer's,:)
Oldphart.
Click to expand...
But doesn't look as cool. :cool:
 
mjones1 said:
But doesn't look as cool. :cool:
Click to expand...

Why not spray it to match your case colour if its not black, make, a custom stand, when l had just the 420 mounted on the back nobody ever said it was uncool more the other way round.

Anyway most of the part's inside are out of sight internal., to me that's not cool.:cool:
 
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