Overclocking under water

Sida

Sida

Sida

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15 Apr 2011
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171
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Stafford
Ok this is something that's been bugging me for a while. Everyone always goes on about overclocking potential being great under water, but I'm unsure as to what they mean. For example I managed to overclock my graphics card to the edge of its life before it got totally unstable and shutdown. The card on stock cooler at 100% reached 67 degrees max. I know increasing voltage increases temps, but I was at the max voltage available in afterburner and even using Sapphire Trixx only allows me to up the voltage from 1250 to 1300.

So am I right that water cooling doesn't let you push your card any further, but simply lets you have these sort of clocks without it being so loud? Or can you up the voltage to higher amounts as long as the temps are low? I used to think it was option 2 but I haven't been able to find any evidence of it at all.
 
Ever cpu/gpu has it's limit, but water cooling allows you to just reach out that little further with some more headroom keeping temps low and getting clock speeds slightly higher..

Can confirm this is true as people are using LN2 for sub-zero temperatures to get ridiculous clocks like i7s oc'd @ 6GHz and things. :p
 
How about for GPUs? I understand for cpus, especially at ln2 temps as electricity gets 100% efficiency at -160 or something doesn't it? But I never really see people do any amazing gpu overclocks. I mean my 6990, I managed to get it at max volts and 1010/1500 stable (through heaven and such benchmarks atleast) on air never going above 67c, yet any forum posts I read seem to be zomg I got my card at 980/1350! I thought I'd see much higher from people under water, atleast for benchmarking if not 24/7 use.
 
As with any overclock, you are never guaranteed to hit x speed, it all depends on the luck with your chip. The thing with water is that, should you get lucky and get a chip that clocks well, its most likely that you will struggle to keep it cool as you start adding serious voltage. With water you can push the voltage a little further as you can keep the temps down at higher voltage.

As for gpus, there is probably less overclocking headroom to begin with. I have a 50% overclock on my cpu but there is no way you could get close to that on a gpu.
 
Overclocking on water is really only advantageous if you have to stop overclocking because of temps. Depending on the loop it can also be a lot quieter also. Past that it just looks cool lol.
 
Sida said:
I mean my 6990, I managed to get it at max volts and 1010/1500 stable (through heaven and such benchmarks atleast) on air never going above 67c, yet any forum posts I read seem to be zomg I got my card at 980/1350! I thought I'd see much higher from people under water, atleast for benchmarking if not 24/7 use.
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You must have wonderful cooling, or your card isn't working at 100%, because everyone else seems to have temperatures well into the 80's.
 
Surveyor said:
You must have wonderful cooling, or your card isn't working at 100%, because everyone else seems to have temperatures well into the 80's.
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Both GPUs get maxed out when running benchmarks. I was running in a HAF-X with the side panel off which I guess would be a huge advantage due to the fact the stock cooler blasts half the air into the case. Also had fans on 100% before starting them as the default profile for these things is terrible. Stock cooler, and yes I no longer have working eardrums after running these benchmarks. I guess I'm a little disappointed. I'll take a better look at CPU cooling/clocking and see what I can do there.
 
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I assumed water cooling pc in particular gpu is aesthetic only, never seen any evidence to suggest water is superior than air cooling apart from that fact it's slower heat transfer rate allows inital hike in gpu volts soon evens out because radiator to air is still the same as air to air cooling.
 
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