Water cooling GPU's - Longevity

Phunky Phish · 2 Aug 2007 at 17:28

When I set up my PC I got some lovely full coverage water blocks for my 7900 GT's, in SLI!

The only problem I now have is they cost a good wedge and I now want to upgrade to an 8800 GTS they are wasted

Can anyone recommend a watercooler for GPU's that may be upgradable to the next cards that come out? Or are we all stuck with replacing our GPU water blocks each time we change our graphics card?

If we are then I am seriously consider dumping water cooling them and go back to air for the gfx cards and just water cool my CPU.

Cheers guys

weescott · 2 Aug 2007 at 17:38

IMO one should avoid full cover blocks all together as you will will be at the mercy of card layout changes even more than normal. And 2, I just don't see the point of them.

Stick with a conventional block like either of these:

http://www.dangerden.com/store/product.php?productid=169&cat=67&page=1

http://www.swiftnets.com/products/mcw60-R.asp

Add ram sinks if you must.

matt1 · 2 Aug 2007 at 17:53

Sound advice, the prices for full cover blocks are staggering and I imagine the resale value is also poor.

chaparral · 2 Aug 2007 at 18:14

matt1 said:
Sound advice, the prices for full cover blocks are staggering and I imagine the resale value is also poor.

EK 8800 full cover waterblocks are about £50 each new....

Am guessing they would sell for around £40 each in the MM..(but resale value will drop quickly went replacement 8800 gpu cards come out)

yantorsen · 2 Aug 2007 at 18:38

you may be able to get hold of some second hand full coverage blocks quite cheeply which would make it better value.

chaparral · 2 Aug 2007 at 18:51

yantorsen said:
you may be able to get hold of some second hand full coverage blocks quite cheeply which would make it better value.

They seem to be very rare to get hold of secondhand...(It can be hard enough to even get hold of them brandnew)

Which is why there resale value is very high..

Phunky Phish · 3 Aug 2007 at 08:57

No.... I've got SLI blocks for my 7900GT's!

Just as I am going to change my gfx card I was wondering if there are blocks I could get that might last a little longer than 1 or 2 GPU revisions!

I do like the DD one!

pegasus1 · 4 Aug 2007 at 08:09

I moved from a 7800GTX to a 8800GTX and NV changed the layout of the mounting holes, Swiftech just produced a cheep replacment mounting bracket that took 2 minutes to attach, hopefully they will do the same if the 8800 replacment has a different hole layout.