Universal GPU blocks

krisboats

krisboats

krisboats

Soldato
Joined
17 Dec 2006
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Location
Loughborough
Hey guys, I've caught the upgrade bug again with my watercool loop and i'm kinda wanting to ditch the air cooler on my graphics card and fit a waterblock. Unfortunately, my card is the asus direct CU 2 gtx 580 and the only full block cooler is the EK one. This seems to only be available from EK and costs about the same amount i paid for the card in the first place.

With that in mind, i'm considering a universal block as they can be had for £25-30. My card currently has no VRM heatsinks anyway, just the breeze from the fans and i don't tend to overclock RAM so wouldn't really be worried about them if i slip a couple of heatsinks on them.

Would i see much benefit from a universal block over a full cover?

Would probably be looking at the EK universal block to go in my loop which consists of:

Apogee gtz cpu block
laing ddc 18w with XSPC res top
120mm swiftech rad as well as 240mm swiftech rad.
 
i had a EK universal block on my old 560ti and stuck ram sinks on the ram. kept the GPU nice and cool. even managed a decent overclock.
 
Well the thing is my cooler is actually pretty damn good already, but it's very big and quite noisy when the temps get higher. I would hate to add a universal block and find my temps are higher with a single loop!
 
nah, they wont be higher. A universal cools the gpu the same as a full cover would. I had universals in my old loop with some heatsinks on the vrm at was 40'c under full load (6950).

That was with the older style EK nickle blocks.
 
I have put an AIO loop on my reference 580, to match my PNY liquid cool 580 in my other PC. It sort of has a full cover heatsink which allows me to still mount a cooler on the chip while keeping the heatsink for VRMs and Vram still there. I know your 580 is not reference and so i dont know if you have this full cover heatsink underneath the chip cooler, but if you do, you probably wont need any additional Vram or VRM sinks.
 
No underplate for the VRM's, just the heatpipe style heatsink mounted to the gpu, a single small heatsink and a backplate.

Without the heatsink it's simply this:
Asus-GeForce-GTX-580-DirectCu-II-Pulled-Apart-Reveals-Custom-PCB-7.jpg
 
Well you at least have VRM heatsinks, which are probably more important to cool than Vram with these 580s.

Just RAM sinks and a universal and you will be fine. If you lose confident in its passive cooling, could put a PCIe fan to directly aim it upward. This will at least give you active cooling for the not so hot parts. Some models are super quiet and would not be noticed over the pump noise or radiator fans.

BTW there are a number of AIO cooler mods for GPU chips. Most involve zip ties and such but they are worth a look if you fancy a cheaper alternative. Will cost you less than the block alone!
 
Avenged7Fold said:
Well you at least have VRM heatsinks, which are probably more important to cool than Vram with these 580s.

Just RAM sinks and a universal and you will be fine. If you lose confident in its passive cooling, could put a PCIe fan to directly aim it upward. This will at least give you active cooling for the not so hot parts. Some models are super quiet and would not be noticed over the pump noise or radiator fans.

BTW there are a number of AIO cooler mods for GPU chips. Most involve zip ties and such but they are worth a look if you fancy a cheaper alternative. Will cost you less than the block alone!
Click to expand...

Well i was just thinking of adding this to my existing loop.

EK Water Blocks EK-VGA Supremacy - Nickel £39.98

Got enough spare hosing and fluid. And got a couple of spare barbs sat on the side.

Quick question though, would that GPU block be fitted with my existing backplate in place or would i need to remove the backplate?
 
You can reattach it using stuff other than screws. I have seen projects on this forum which use things like padded double sided sticky tape in the corners of the pcb and such.
 
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