Watercooler not cooling as well as fans, why?

[Wycked Games]

Hi,

I recently purchased a
EK-VECTOR RTX RE RGB GRAPHICS CARD WATER BLOCK - NICKEL + PLEXI from Overclockers, to compliment the CPU cooler I installed last week.

I have a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 Gaming OC 8G, 8GB GDDR6 (GV-N2080GAMING OC-8GC) which according to the page for the water block, is compatible. (though EKWB's site says they don't make a compatible cooler for this card)

I have it on a dedicated loop, with it's own pump, 120mm radiator and reservoir.

With the stock fans for the GPU while playing Overwatch I would run at 38 degrees C, with the new EK-VECTOR all my games are running around 85-88 degrees C, with no other changes made to the system.

Water is flowing smoothly, micro bubbles occur, and when not gaming the GPU drops down to 36 degrees C pretty quickly.

Any thoughts/ideas folks?

 

[Wycked Games]

I did wonder, though the tubing out of the GPU feels warm but not hot to the touch and the tubing in feels cool.
I've just ordered a 360mm radiator (luckily I have the Lian Li 011-Dynamic case so lots of cooler space), will try it out and update if there are further issues.

 

[Wycked Games]

Yea a 120 rad was never going to cool a 2080 adequately, though 85c sounds high even with the linited sized rad. 100% sure it was fitted correctly?

I've checked, double checked and triple checked all the fittings, and I was meticulous when I installed the cooler block to the GPU, had a you tube video up to follow, made sure all the thermal pads were placed correctly and it was all screwed down correctly and evenly. So, short answer, I hope so!

 

[Wycked Games]

Quite sure there's. Mine I'm using a 2080 and a 420 for CPU and GPU. The 2080 stays at 25c now, and about 40C under load. CPU shows short increases, but consistently stays less than 50C.
I would check the screws. I would bet the block isn't fit as it should.

I'll double check all the screws when I install the new radiator, thanks for the sound advice, I was shocked that my GPU temp went from 39 to 85, and GPU load is at 100% as soon as a game is started, any game

 

[Wycked Games]

Thank you to all who helped.

I now have a happy running GPU idling at 29 degrees C, and running a max of 45 degrees C while gaming (tried Overwatch, WoW Classic and Diablo 3)

The Solution:
Replaced the 120mm res with a 360mm
Reorganised my tubing to be more efficient
Resat the Cooler Block onto the GPU and (don't laugh) did the correct screws to attach it that were behind the armor plate.
My rig is now running rock solid and I am over the moon

Again, a big thanks to all who helped, you were all right in some form, and the combined advice lead to a now very happy Wycked, as well as some excited stream viewers.