Watercooling Options - Non reference GPU

DiscoDave · 9 Sep 2014 at 16:30

Hi Everyone,

I've never dived into watercooling before, therefore be gentle with me.

I have a Sapphire 7970 (Dual X OC) GPU, using a non-reference PCB. As my research goes, there is no water block for it.

I've seen you can get universal ones blocks. Are they actually any good? Is it worth looking in to? Or simply wait until I replace the GPU and get something with a reference PCB.

Thanks,

GiraffePencils · 9 Sep 2014 at 16:45

Universal are just as good, but you need to put heatsinks on the GPU and it needs to have airflow over it.

pastymuncher · 9 Sep 2014 at 17:21

I always use a universal block on my cards with ramsinks on the memory and i usually make a custom heatsink for the vrm's. The block I have now (XSPC Rasa vga) has been on at least 6 cards now and the beauty of universal blocks is that when you change cards you don't have to drain the loop. Just remove the 4 bolts, take the card out, put the new card in, attach the block (with fresh tim) to the card and away you go. I even ran SLI with a pair of universal blocks years ago and that was long before we had the brilliant dual links we have now.

You have a bonus with your card. I just looked at a couple of reviews where they took the cooler off and you have a decent size heatsink on your vrm's so with enough airflow through the case it should hopefully keep them cool.

You have a couple of options for blocks. There is the Watercool HEATKILLER® GPU-X³ Core LT that is only at competitors so I can't link, ek water blocks ek-thermosphere but even though it's supposed to be a universal block it only fits gtx6/700 cards so you have to buy an additional mount from ek here or the XSPC Raystorm GPU that is fiddly to fit.

DiscoDave · 9 Sep 2014 at 17:58

Thanks for the comments all.

Regarding the airflow comments, is this required of all watercooling setups? Or specific to ones that include generic block components?

pastymuncher · 9 Sep 2014 at 19:09

Full cover blocks don't need it so much as the memory and vrm's are cooled by the block. With universal blocks you are cooling the memory and vrm's passively. Like I said though, I have never had any problems doing it this way and memory heatsinks barely get warm. The main ones to worry about are the vrm's and your card seems to have a decent size heatsink already on them. There's a nice piccy here showing it.

DiscoDave · 9 Sep 2014 at 19:16

pastymuncher said:
Full cover blocks don't need it so much as the memory and vrm's are cooled by the block. With universal blocks you are cooling the memory and vrm's passively. Like I said though, I have never had any problems doing it this way and memory heatsinks barely get warm. The main ones to worry about are the vrm's and your card seems to have a decent size heatsink already on them. There's a nice piccy here showing it.

Thanks, that's a reference 7970 though, my 7970 is with a blue PCB (at some point sapphire changed over) Which I think looks like this:

But I think it looks good enough.

pastymuncher · 9 Sep 2014 at 21:17

If your's is like that then I reckon you would get away with just putting a XSPC Raystorm or EK VGA Supremacy on it. The Heatkiller and EK Thermosphere won't fit with that heatsink going across the top of the card. Provided your case airflow is half decent I don't think you will need any additional heatsinks.