Mixing old and new what would you do?

[Maxed Out]

All,
Time to retire an old working water-cooled rig. Which uses a Swiftech Ultra + H20-220 (7/16” id tubing) to cool a Q6600 and Nvidia 8800 Gtx graphics card. All housed in a large Thermaltake Armor case. I am going to go with a new MSI X99 SLI Plus board, and 5820 cpu. Graphics card will probably be a Gtx 980. Am thinking, with a new 2011 cpu block, I could use the old Swiftech kit to cool the cpu. For the graphics card, another dedicated separate watercooler.
Not sure that the old setup would cope with both (heat wise), unless maybe, replace the smaller twin rad, with something bigger. I don’t need crazy overclocks, but I enjoy the silence. Thoughts, components/recommendations appreciated.

 

[Maxed Out]

Should have put this in the Watercooling section. Can it be moved please

 

[Cenedd]

The good news is the the 980 produces a similar amount of heat to the 8800. See TDP column here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units.

Not sure about 7/16th" tubing but I was on 11/8mm and found it had become unfashionable once I went to rebuild. You may have to change hosing for some/all of your loop and the fittings too. You may also find (my latest gotcha) that the threads of you existing fittings are too long. Current EK blocks only take a shallow thread of 5mm max and my old 11/8 (and some 10/8) fittings were closer to 10mm so they hit bottom before the o-ring was even close to touching, let alone sealing.

Have a look for the TDP of the old and new CPU and you'll get an idea if you're going to be dumping more/less/same heat into the loop and hence whether you need bigger/more rads to stay on top of it.

 

[Maxed Out]

Thanks Cenedd, Useful links along with the gotcha. Looks like around 60 more watts in the loop to deal with. A bigger rad and 3 fans might just do the trick, along with new hosing and fittings and blocks.

 

[Cenedd]

Depends what your current temps are....it may take it with just a little temp rise as rads get more efficient as the temperature difference (hot coolant to cold air) increases. That said, shiny new stuff is always good and overkill is always welcome

 

[killianzz]

Would you not be better off by spending the money you were going to spend watercooling the 980 on a 980ti? A 980ti overclocks very well without watercooling, and is a much better gpu...

 

[Purgatory]

Would you not be better off by spending the money you were going to spend watercooling the 980 on a 980ti? A 980ti overclocks very well without watercooling, and is a much better gpu...

This..^

I would forget water cooling altogether and use air cooling instead to have a better system than a water cooled one. A good air cooler for CPU is all you need to buy then and get a 980ti with 0db when below 60c and then still not noisy when over 60c. Something like a EVGA 980ti Classified.

Water cooling is becoming a waste of money and time in maintaining it. It's not like we have really hot components anymore that require this type of cooling, water cooling in my opinion is done more for show or if you are running a lot of GPUS in one case and require that cooling. The noise levels with all the fans on the radiators is no better than a air cooled case setup right.

 

[doyll]

I agree with most of what Purgatory said.
It will take more than just a CPU cooler. You will need to optimize your case airflow and many need a few fans to do that. I don't know if your case is really compatible with air cooling airflow. Here is a link to a bunch of air cooling info. First post is index. Click on topics to see them. Then if you have any questions, ask them here. http://www.overclock.net/t/1491876/ways-to-better-cooling-airflow-cooler-fan-data/0_20

 

[Cenedd]

Watercooling let's you do a number of things that air cooling doesn't.
You can push over clocks further because of the additional cooling. This comes at the expense of noise (assuming fans at high speed) or space for lots of rads. It's certainly likely to be expensive. It could be you already have the gear and can get better performance out of cheaper parts or some people do it more for the challenge - just check out the threads on people trying to hit 5Ghz on a CPU even though 4.8Ghz is going to be no slower in practice.

Some people - myself included - watercool for the peace and quiet. It is possible with enough rads to be completely free of fans. That's where I started but now I've got 5 fans - they're just at 800rpm and as near inaudible as it gets. Even my pump only get 7 to 8 Volts for the peace. Even then my 980ti tops out at about 39 C when gaming.
No one ever went watercooled for the simplicity over air cooling! But if any of the other reasons apply, go for it. If you were truly making purchasing decisions on what is reasonably justifiable, we'd all be running budget Nvidia 730's for a fraction of the cost nut a good chunk of the performance and no fan required. But we're probably all familiar with the concept the a 980 would be perfectly good enough...but you know you won't be happy knowing you could have had the better one!

 

[Maxed Out]

Thanks guys for the replys, links and opinions. I spend a lot of time working on the PC. Photoshop,Video, as well as some Fps for fun. I am not interested in buying bells, lights and whistles, just function. The watercool soloution works for me mainly because of the low noise levels. Fan noise for me is a distraction when I am working. I get the point about the 980ti over the 980. Might just have to up the budget there.

 

[doyll]

Do not confuse 'water cooling' with 'CLC cooling'. Even heatpipes are 'water cooling' as water is what is used in them too.

Comparing a CLC to a custom loop or even an AIO like Swiftech and EKWB sell is like comparing a Ford Ka or Mitsubishi Mirage to a Bentley or Rolls Royce

CLCs do not 'cool better and quieter' than top air. Just look around at how many members her on OcUK that jumped on the CLC band wagon a few years back are now back or coming back to air coolers .. not always because of noise, but because air cools just as well, is cheaper, has almost 0 failures, and if a fan gets noisy or dies system will work with any fan until replacement arrives. When a CLC fails, it's the pump 99.9% of the time. CPU has no cooling at all so no functioning system until new cooler is installed .. meaning lost time, expensive replacement, etc.

Here is some data showing some of the differences.