EK Watercooling Graphics Card question

Watlinguk

Watlinguk

Watlinguk

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Joined
1 Aug 2010
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1,870
Hey guys.

Before Christmas I bought a pre watercooled system.

It has a gigabyte 1080 with EK blocks on it. I want to try and sell/trade that and downgrade to a 1070/980ti.

How easy would it be to swap a watercooled card out for a new one please? I have no idea what's involved but I've set my mind on downgrading to get cash my way.

Thanks in advance
 
Probably not the most expansive answer you will get however:

I would imagine that you will need to drain the loop at a minimum.
Install a new block for your downgraded card
Reconnect the loop, refill, bleed ect.

Or

If not adding a GPU block to your new card changing your loop to only cool the CPU, then refile, bleed ect.
 
your 1080 has a water block on it and is in the water cooled loop, you buy a 1070 and water block and refit it into the loop, or 980ti

I would not go this route as you will not get what you paid for the 1080 with water block, and if you can buy a 2nd hand 1070 you will still have to buy a water block and that will negate the price you get for the 1080

You might if your lucky get £100 out of the 1080 to 1070 swap maybe even less. 980ti may be a cheaper option but they hold there 2nd hand price well and stocks of water blocks that fit them will be harder to get.

also not all 980ti cards and 1070 cards take the same reference water blocks, most water blocks are made for reference cards not other vendors versions of cards. EVGA being only one of a few that have water blocks made for SC versions.


If I were you I would keep the 1080 as a lot of mucking around involved to get a £100 out of the deal. perfect deal scenario would be find someone with a water cooled 1070 that wants to part with some cash to upgrade to a 1080 and do a straight swap plus £100 to you.

For £100 I would keep the 1080
 
Thanks for the advice guys. It does sound like a lot of effort for possibly £100. Especially when I dont know how watercooling works or how to reinstall components
 
Draining is first step, naturally. Is it hardline or soft tubing? £100 is about right. You won't get a huge amount for a 1080 with a block vs a 1070 with a block, unless you were able to pick one up second hand, or do a direct swap with someone. It would make more financial sense to just go with a 1070/980Ti with an air cooler and forget watercooling. You'd be sacrificing some noise (when it was under load), but that's the only way what you're suggesting begins to make financial sense. Where in the UK are you? Do you know anyone who could help you out?

It's certainly problematic not knowing anything about watercooling when you own such a system... if something goes wrong, or even when it comes to necessary maintenance, you're a bit screwed lol.
 
Legend;30495820 said:
Draining is first step, naturally. Is it hardline or soft tubing? £100 is about right. You won't get a huge amount for a 1080 with a block vs a 1070 with a block, unless you were able to pick one up second hand, or do a direct swap with someone. It would make more financial sense to just go with a 1070/980Ti with an air cooler and forget watercooling. You'd be sacrificing some noise (when it was under load), but that's the only way what you're suggesting begins to make financial sense. Where in the UK are you? Do you know anyone who could help you out?

It's certainly problematic not knowing anything about watercooling when you own such a system... if something goes wrong, or even when it comes to necessary maintenance, you're a bit screwed lol.
Click to expand...


Hey thank you for the comment. It's hardline tubing.

I live in Hull Yorkshire buy don't know of anyone that could help me even drain a system let alone change components :December

I'd be willing to move to a standard 1070 none watercooled. I'm guessing I would need to change parts on the full loop though?

Regards
 
hard line tube would be more difficult to change around as you would need to make some new tubes to take your GFX card out of the loop to install a 1070 air cooled card.

As I said earlier, after all this and the effort you may well use up much of your extra cash from the 1080 re doing your loop to suit just CPU water cooling only, and that's if you have the skills to do it yourself, if you have to pay a shop, then even more would have gone from your £100


Just keep the 1080 water cooled and enjoy it, to much work to change for very little money in the pocket.
 
Watlinguk;30495988 said:
Hey thank you for the comment. It's hardline tubing.

I live in Hull Yorkshire buy don't know of anyone that could help me even drain a system let alone change components :December

I'd be willing to move to a standard 1070 none watercooled. I'm guessing I would need to change parts on the full loop though?

Regards
Click to expand...

As Matt says, hardline makes things a bit more tricky, but as you don't really know anything about watercooling, it's six and half a dozen at the end of the day. Does the system you bought have a drain valve? That would be your first step as mentioned. Once you've drained and removed the card, you'd then need more tubing to route from pump/res to CPU, so that you essentially had a CPU only loop. Of course, you could just strip everything down, sell all the components and go air! If you post some pics of your set-up, it may easier to offer some advice.

There are quite a few forum members up your way on here, so you may get lucky and have someone help you out. I'd certainly be happy to do so myself if I lived closer but I'm on the south coast lol!

Still, you're not really going to come out of this with much money in your pocket. As I say, best case scenario is that you find a second hand air cooled 1070. I'd be interested in doing an exchange myself as I have a Strix 1070 I'd like to swap for a 1080 with a block.

Ultimately though, it seems keeping your system may be the way to go... or just selling the ENTIRE thing as a complete system and starting again with an air build lol!
 
Legend;30496133 said:
As Matt says, hardline makes things a bit more tricky, but as you don't really know anything about watercooling, it's six and half a dozen at the end of the day. Does the system you bought have a drain valve? That would be your first step as mentioned. Once you've drained and removed the card, you'd then need more tubing to route from pump/res to CPU, so that you essentially had a CPU only loop. Of course, you could just strip everything down, sell all the components and go air! If you post some pics of your set-up, it may easier to offer some advice.

There are quite a few forum members up your way on here, so you may get lucky and have someone help you out. I'd certainly be happy to do so myself if I lived closer but I'm on the south coast lol!

Still, you're not really going to come out of this with much money in your pocket. As I say, best case scenario is that you find a second hand air cooled 1070. I'd be interested in doing an exchange myself as I have a Strix 1070 I'd like to swap for a 1080 with a block.

Ultimately though, it seems keeping your system may be the way to go... or just selling the ENTIRE thing as a complete system and starting again with an air build lol!
Click to expand...

Hey thanks again. It's a shame you're so far as that would be my best intention 1070 for my 1080. Here's the specs and a picture of the build. The guy i bought it off did give me spare tubing with it but I'm not even prepared to attempt to do it myself as a first water cooling project. I know how unlucky i am haha

SPECS
- i7 4790K (EK Water block)
- MSI Z97i Gaming ACK
- 16GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 2400Mhz
- Gigabyte GTX 1080 8GB Reference (EK Water Block)
- Crucial 256GB SSD
- EVGA G1 1000W Power Supply
- NZXT Hue+ Lighting Kit
- CableMod Custom Sleeved Black/Red Cables
- Phanteks Enthoo Evolv Mini ITX Case with Window
- Custom PETG Tubing Water Cooling System with EK 240mm Radiator and D5 Pump/Res


https://postimg.cc/image/bznedmhv5/
 
vapor matt;30496044 said:
hard line tube would be more difficult to change around as you would need to make some new tubes to take your GFX card out of the loop to install a 1070 air cooled card.

As I said earlier, after all this and the effort you may well use up much of your extra cash from the 1080 re doing your loop to suit just CPU water cooling only, and that's if you have the skills to do it yourself, if you have to pay a shop, then even more would have gone from your £100


Just keep the 1080 water cooled and enjoy it, to much work to change for very little money in the pocket.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply Matt. If i was to leave the machine as it is, Would i not need to maintain it very often? If i could just leave it and it will run fine then it might be best keeping it after all. Alternatively trading it for an air cooled system
 
You might have gotten away with just removing the PCB from the block and swapping for a reference 1070 without draining the loop if you were on soft tubing but not a chance with your current system.

I would just stick to what you have, the performance mightn't be needed now but in 2-3 years you could find that it still does what you need whereas a 1070/980ti wouldn't.

Legend;30496514 said:
That link doesn't seem to work for me?
Click to expand...

r5YJjXj.jpg
 
Well I can't say much about the guy's watercooling build skills, but it is what it is. Hope you didn't pay over the odds and got a good deal anyway.

If you do keep the system there will come a point where you need to drain, flush, and refill. Not the most difficult task in the world, but the drain valve isn't exactly in the best place, and refilling that res looks tricky, probably have to remove the top of the case.

As Disco says, you may find a 1080 overkill now, but there will come a time in the future where you won't. It comes down to how desperate you are for cash in the here and now. If you can afford to keep it, I would just do that.

What are your temps out of curiosity?
 
I would stay as you are, and the drain looks to be off the GFX card with a blanker in the end, you wont have to drain it that often anyway, most of todays liquids have inhibitors in them anyway. and easy to add if not.

Its a small case and from the pic if you had an air cooled 1070 its reference blower would be close to the top of the shelf which your PSU sits under. which might add to cooling issues via airflow to the cooler on the card. some of the AIB cards might even hit that shelf.

unless your desperate for £100 I would leave well alone and enjoy your 1080 as being water cooled it will service you well for many years to come.


Enjoy it:D
 
Thank you everyone. I have decided to keep with what i have. For the sake of £100 it's not going to be worth the downgrade. The only way i see it being viable is if i traded this machine for an air cooled machine with money my way.
 
Legend;30496680 said:
Well I can't say much about the guy's watercooling build skills, but it is what it is. Hope you didn't pay over the odds and got a good deal anyway.

If you do keep the system there will come a point where you need to drain, flush, and refill. Not the most difficult task in the world, but the drain valve isn't exactly in the best place, and refilling that res looks tricky, probably have to remove the top of the case.

As Disco says, you may find a 1080 overkill now, but there will come a time in the future where you won't. It comes down to how desperate you are for cash in the here and now. If you can afford to keep it, I would just do that.

What are your temps out of curiosity?
Click to expand...

With the system overclocked i get around 55 on the gpu and 50-60 on the cpu. It's not the coolest of systems but it's super quiet and i think the build looks really neat. I think in hindsight i shouldn't have got a water cooled system, I should have learnt to build one myself so i can actually maintain it :/
 
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