Is it worth water cooling a 670..?

no_1_dave · 8 Aug 2012 at 13:33

I'm thinking of ditching my 470 SLI setup in favour of a 670. Performance would be about the same but I wouldnt be hitting the v-ram limit I am at the moment @ 1440p. I currently have my whole system water cooled but the extra outlay for a water block would take the 670 up to 680 prices. From my understanding the 670s/680s run cooler & reasonably quiet anyway so is there any real benefit in the extra outlay?

I'm very tempted to sell all my water cooling gear & go back to air if I upgrade, or maybe keep my CPU under water but go air on the GPUs. What are your thoughts?

andybird123 · 8 Aug 2012 at 14:38

I've got EVGA 670's... they OC like absolute champs but are noisy on full fan - I'm putting them under water with GPU only blocks because the mosfets already have a big heatsink on them and don't get too hot and the memory stock has no cooling so ram sinks will be an upgrade if anything (and they have half the memory on the back so the full cover blocks don't cover all the chips which I'd imagine would play havoc with trying to OC half water cooled and half not)

mine will do 1280-1300 on air but really noisy so I end up at 1200... so water will let me run 1300 at least, maybe more and allow me to go mostly fanless at the same time

if you get a windforce 670 then they have really good cooling anyway so it's a bit of a waste to watercool them as the gains are not as big, I bought the EVGA's because I knew I wanted to watercool so there was no point paying extra for a big fat heatsink

no_1_dave · 8 Aug 2012 at 15:34

Now that's a good idea.
Just a couple of GPU water blocks and some ram heatsinks & maybe a little push to SLI 670s.
I'm getting that annoying upgrade itch that my wallet hates. Think I'd have to stick with 1 670 then maybe add another later. If I upgrade

andybird123 · 8 Aug 2012 at 16:50

I started off with an alphacool HF14 GPU only block but then no where had a 2nd in stock so I've switched to MCW82's which are apparently better anyway

I toyed with the idea of cutting holes in the original shrouds but want to keep them in one piece in case of warranty so I'm going to make a little acrylic shroud for both cards to sit in with maybe 120mm fan(s) on really low blowing across the top and bottom of both cards to add some active cooling to mosfets and ram and will give me the advantage of adding some LED backlighting with something like a GTX 670 and EVGA logo to copy the look of the standard shrouds

Monkeyspaz5000 · 8 Aug 2012 at 18:19

I would water cool it. I am with mine.

I have a Pallit reference 670 and geeze, that fan has an annoying noise to it!!

tintin82 · 9 Aug 2012 at 06:49

I have a Windforce 670.
I installed a water loop with the thought of adding my 670 into the loop at a later date. But i dont think i will bother as the noise and temps on the Windforce are perfectly fine.
The only advantage would be that the air pushed through my rads would be cooler, but then the heat inside the loop would obviously be warmer.

pgi947 · 9 Aug 2012 at 07:41

Putting a 670 under water is only really needed if you're either hitting the thermal choke at 70c or if its too noisy.

I gained no real benefit from watercooling a 670 windforce.

qbazdz · 9 Aug 2012 at 11:13

Andy, what version of EVGA do you have?

andybird123 · 9 Aug 2012 at 11:48

I've got one standard and one SuperClocked... the only difference between the 2 is that the SC comes with a 50mhz bump... they both have all the same hardware and they both OC to the same maximum give or take 20mhz

I got the super because it was cheap on the MembersMarket

qbazdz · 9 Aug 2012 at 11:56

Thanks!

RogerMesenseless · 9 Aug 2012 at 13:12

I'd watercool a 670.

mjones1 · 9 Aug 2012 at 13:18

Not worth the extra money, I would look at the gigabyte gtx 670 windforce model.

andybird123 · 9 Aug 2012 at 14:29

really, not worth the extra £30 over a £280 card, much better to spend £350 instead and dump all the heat inside the case and have noisy fans everywhere?

no_1_dave · 9 Aug 2012 at 16:01

andybird123 said:
really, not worth the extra £30 over a £280 card, much better to spend £350 instead and dump all the heat inside the case and have noisy fans everywhere?

I was looking at the full cover blocks which are approx £100.
A £30 GPU only block however would be the way I go if/when I upgrade.

qbazdz · 9 Aug 2012 at 16:10

1x Raystorm GPU + 2 sets of Heatsinks would keep you going for at least 3 card swaps

(as long as they stay not so power hungry like they are now).
Just get spare 3M thermal tape

tintin82 · 16 Aug 2012 at 12:52

I see the XSPC 680 water blocks are back in stock.
Now interested again in putting one on my Windforce x3 670. Would this affect my loop temperature enough to justify it by not having the 670 expelling air into my case?
The windforce is great, cool and quiet, however it does dump quite a bit of hot air in the case which in turn is being dragged through my rads.

JamesM · 23 Aug 2012 at 10:18

Tough one really. I would have thought it wouldn't be worth it purely because the windforce is a cool card already.

I'm going to put mine under water purely because its the reference card and hits the thermal limit at 70 degrees so quickly even with a mild overclock, not to mention the sound it makes at 80% fan speed.

andybird123 · 23 Aug 2012 at 12:46

tintin82 said:
I see the XSPC 680 water blocks are back in stock.
Now interested again in putting one on my Windforce x3 670. Would this affect my loop temperature enough to justify it by not having the 670 expelling air into my case?
The windforce is great, cool and quiet, however it does dump quite a bit of hot air in the case which in turn is being dragged through my rads.

if you put a waterblock on it then the same heat will be dumped in to your water loop instead

the windforce is the best air cooler anyway, so you won't get any better OC out of it on water

as james said, blower type cards can benefit from improved temps and reduced noise but the windforce really not so much

GoogalyMoogaly · 23 Aug 2012 at 14:13

Really?
My Windforce 670s run pretty hot and can be fairly loud.
Got 67°C on the top card yesterday, I think the second card was around 64ºC.

I'm tempted to watercool them, but also tempted to go with 4GB cards and watercooling them.

andybird123 · 23 Aug 2012 at 15:02

60's for a GPU is not particularly hot no

but then on water they run at about 34-39!