Full cover or just GPU block

G-Dubs · 16 Sep 2010 at 22:41

Giving serious thought to water cooling my 5850. But am put off by the cost of the full cover blocks that are card specific

So I'm thinking of just getting a generic block for the GPU that can then be used on future cards

Does anyone have experienceof these or know how they compare?

twist3d0n3 · 16 Sep 2010 at 22:52

haven't used gpu only blocks on my 5*** cards, as when they came out i couldn't source any heatsinks for the mosfets. but if you can buy/make your own mosfet cooling that's adequate i'm sure it'll be fine (and cheap

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pastymuncher · 17 Sep 2010 at 09:55

I would never buy a full cover block. They are far too expensive and as you say, only fit a single card. I have my trusty 4.5 year old Aquaextreme MP-1 on my 5850 and it is doing a sterling job. It has been on 6800GT/7800GT/8800GT/4850/4870 and now my 5850. Although not comparable to other people set ups as my rad is next to a window, i am getting load temps of mid to high 30's. I have Zalman ramsinks on the memory just cooled by case airflow. I made a heatsink out of a old Pentium cooler for the vrm's which was fine before it was overclocked but once clocked they started getting towards 120 degrees. Luckily i picked up a used Thermalright VRM R4 on the bay for just under a tenner delivered and vrm temps are back down to the mid 50's low 60's again.

Mariusz · 28 Sep 2010 at 19:55

Hi G-Dubs, did you end up buying a GPU only waterblock? I am going to try out water cooling in the near future and I'm interested in other peoples experience of GPU only blocks.
I've got an overclocked 5870 and i've been looking at getting either a Swiftech MCW60/80 or a Koolance GPU 220 water block just concerned about Ram and mosfet temps.

dazzerd · 29 Sep 2010 at 12:45

Used used to cool my gpus's with the MCW60 and it is a great block.

I just found it a pain in the backside to properly secure the ramsinks and vrm heatsinks, so decided to move to full cover.

There are people about who sware that as long as there is adequate flow going over the cards then you don't even need to bother with sinks at all on the ram and vrm's. How relevant this is no modern day cards like the 480 and 5870 I don't know.

Greebo · 29 Sep 2010 at 13:03

I used to just use gpu blocks but with modern cards needing cooling on vrm's and memory I have moved over to full blocks.

I think on the last card I just had a gpu block, my vrm temps would hit above 100C as my case cooling wasn't good.

AT the end of the day, watercooling everything in my case, I don't really want loads of case fans running as well.

More expensive, yes but better cooling overall.