First full loop - Custom loop newbie

VanGoghComplex

VanGoghComplex

2[H]4U
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Apr 5, 2016
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My CPU is cooled by a Corsair AIO unit, and it does admirably. More in the interest of building a custom loop than anything, I've been toying with the idea of watercooling my MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G video card. The fan noise doesn't bother me, and I can overclock fairly well on the stock Twin Frozr V air cooler... I just kinda want to build a loop. It's always intrigued me.

That said, since this will be my first project, I'm curious if my plan sounds good to more experienced folks.

1.) I've been shopping and found full-coverage waterblocks for my card, so I know those are available. Looking at Aplhacool, specifically.

2.) I've really only got room in my case for a single 140mm rad, though I can push-pull on it and I've got clearance for a pretty thick one. Is it worth it to consider watercooling with this restriction? I've seen prebuilt and AIO GPU coolers in this configuration, can I take that as an indicator that it should work well?

3.) For simplicity's sake I'm eyeing a small tube reservoir/pump combo. My Phanteks case has a reservoir mount right beside the GPU, kinda between it and the upper exhaust grille.

So, what do you all think? A res/pump combo, full GPU block, and 140mm rad sound like a good setup?
 
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I think it will be enough for a single 970. I have a 120mm AIO on my 980ti and that thing is unable to keep up at all. I can barely touch the radiator (running fans at ~900rpm). If you use a thick, quality radiator you should be in the clear. I would, though, plan the pump/res combo for a larger loop, as I'm 99% sure that after you finish this, you will want to put your cpu into the same loop. Actually, it might be a smart move to resell your AIO cooler, look for a good used cpu waterblock and whatever radiator you can fit (2x120 or 2x140) and just build a full cpu/gpu loop.
 
Thanks! I may bring the CPU into the loop in the future, but if and when I do, I'll open up a 3*140 spot in the front of my case by removing the AIO.

With that in mind, maybe I'll move the CPU AIO up to the top of the case for the time being, and just buy a much larger rad to begin with.
 
Yup, looks like it. I would, though, get a universal waterblock, as it may be very difficult to sell a full cover waterblock later, when you want to change your GPU. But that's just me being a cheapskate :)
 
yup that's it but skip the kill coil. use distilled water or coolant with anti shit in it. and in the future if you want to add your cpu you can just add another rad to the loop. ive even seen people convert their AIOs and it works well.
 
Nice, thanks for the feedback!

Koween, I hadn't thought of resale value on the block. I would like to overclock the snot out of this GPU (I've tested some pretty aggressive overclocks on it with air cooling and it performs admirably), so I was thinking a full-coverage block would be superior from a component cooling standpoint. Is that the case?

pendragon1, thanks for the advice.

One more question for you guys: how difficult is it to get the GPU to control the fan on my rad? Is that even desirable? It would be neat to have it ramp up under load, but I can live with it if not.
 
VanGoghComplex said:
One more question for you guys: how difficult is it to get the GPU to control the fan on my rad? Is that even desirable? It would be neat to have it ramp up under load, but I can live with it if not.
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this could be doable. you would need to figure out what the power draw ifs for the fans already on it. then if the card will supply enough volts/amps you could splice together a cable from the gpus fan header into a normal 3/4 pin fan header. its all about the power draw. if its the same or close the card wont even know the difference. make sense?

edit: this is something I'm actually going to have to do soon as my left fan is starting to die.
 
pendragon1, absolutely. Maybe I'll get lucky and the fans on the air cooler will have their voltage/amperage labeled somewhere when I take it apart. With my card though, I'm second-guessing whether I want to do this. The fans don't turn at all when you're below 60c. I can override that with Afterburner, but I'd rather not. Maybe it'd be best to just power my fan directly and get that sweet sweet chilling action all day long.
 
VanGoghComplex said:
the fans on the air cooler will have their voltage/amperage labeled somewhere
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that's what I'm hoping. at least a model number. i did refurb work for a while so my googlefoo is strong.
yeah you've got the new twin frozer 5, ive got a TF4 on my MSI 280x. might do this later today or tomorrow. ill let you know what I find, it should be close to yours. the heatsink was redesigned but the fans look the same. I'm guessing that the fan header on the gpu is pretty close to what a mobo fan header would be, ~1a. fingers crossed cause then it'd be no prob.

edit: and I'm waaaay out of warranty so nothing to loose by modding it!
 
There isn't that much difference when it comes to temperatures and overclocking using a universal block vs full cover. It's just that with a universal block you need to add vrm/vram heatsinks or come up with another way of cooling them. I have used an EK supremacy gpu water block under the stock gtx 980ti shroud. The water block takes care of the gpu chip, while the leftovers of the stock cooler take care of the rest. Ofc, it's a lot more work than slapping on a full cover block - depends on what you want and how much work you are willing to do.
As for fan control - speedfan has an option to make custom fan curves for any fan you want depending on the temperature of any component. For instance - I had a h75 on my 980ti before. The fan for it was plugged into my motherboard. I had speedfan fan curve set to look at the gpu temperature and control the fan on gpu's h75. Works pretty much the same way as afterburner settings, except gives you a full 0-100% range and the choice of what header to use.
 
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pendragon1 said:
so I found this today: PLD08010S12HH 12V 0.35A Amazon.com: Power Logic PLD08010S12HH 12V 0.35A 4Wire Cooling Fan twins Fan: Computers & Accessories
those are the most commonly used replacement fans for the twin frozer coolers. they are 12v .35a. I have found that the original msi fans vary between .35 and .40a so that does give us a lot of options, either get new oem style or slap a couple sp120's(.18a) on there!
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Good to know that's an option. I'll have to look into my GPU and see if there's a way to disable the "fans off below 60c" feature without having to add MSI Afterburner to my startup list.
 
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That's worth looking into, for me. I highly prefer hardware fan control to software. I'll check it out, thanks for the tip. =)
 
pendragon1 said:
yup that's it but skip the kill coil. use distilled water or coolant with anti shit in it. and in the future if you want to add your cpu you can just add another rad to the loop. ive even seen people convert their AIOs and it works well.
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Never ever do that. AIO are made of aluminum in many cases, and mixing metals is a no-no.

VanGoghComplex said:
Nice, thanks for the feedback!

Koween, I hadn't thought of resale value on the block. I would like to overclock the snot out of this GPU (I've tested some pretty aggressive overclocks on it with air cooling and it performs admirably), so I was thinking a full-coverage block would be superior from a component cooling standpoint. Is that the case?

pendragon1, thanks for the advice.

One more question for you guys: how difficult is it to get the GPU to control the fan on my rad? Is that even desirable? It would be neat to have it ramp up under load, but I can live with it if not.
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Don't bother. The single rad you plan to buy is more than enough to cool 2 or even 3 GTX970 without worrying too much. For a single one don't worry about the fan or speeds or anything because no matter the fan you put in there, you will never see 65ºC on the gpu. At the end of the day you aren't even cooling 200W and, then, the gpu surface is huge compared to any cpu out there. So they are far easier to cool down than a cpu.
 
Yeah your right about the metals. I missed the "full copper" part on his rad. Oops. It's not an issue if all the rads are aluminum though... I'm pretty sure he wasn't planning on that though but good catch.
 
Yeah, if (when? haha) I go to a full custom loop, I'll sell my AIO and utilize all 360mm of front-end rad space my Phanteks case has got. For now though, I'm happy with having two loops. The Corsair AIO looks fantastic and matches the theme of my build, and it does a great job keeping my CPU cool, so... I guess I don't wanna fix what ain't broke. :D
 
Well, it's all done and here she is:

E6JjHqF.jpg


It certainly works. I'm at +190 core and +590 VRAM on the overclock, and the card levels out at 60c after half an hour of play.

I'm considering adding a 30mm single 140 rad where you see the rearward top fan, to get a bit more rad space on the GPU loop. I realize with the combo pump/res/rad that's already in there it will make that loop a pain to fill and bleed, but I'm not too offput by that.

What do you guys think? With those numbers, is it worth a rad and a couple fittings to give my GPU a little more dissipation?
 
I think you should try to get a 240 or a 280 radiator instead of a 140. Maybe move the front radiator to the top and install the new one in the front. You should be planning to add a cpu in to the loop sooner or later and getting a bigger radiator now may be a better choice. But, right now, the temperatures seem to be good and it is not needed.
 
VanGoghComplex said:
My CPU is cooled by a Corsair AIO unit, and it does admirably. More in the interest of building a custom loop than anything, I've been toying with the idea of watercooling my MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G video card. The fan noise doesn't bother me, and I can overclock fairly well on the stock Twin Frozr V air cooler... I just kinda want to build a loop. It's always intrigued me.

That said, since this will be my first project, I'm curious if my plan sounds good to more experienced folks.

1.) I've been shopping and found full-coverage waterblocks for my card, so I know those are available. Looking at Aplhacool, specifically.

2.) I've really only got room in my case for a single 140mm rad, though I can push-pull on it and I've got clearance for a pretty thick one. Is it worth it to consider watercooling with this restriction? I've seen prebuilt and AIO GPU coolers in this configuration, can I take that as an indicator that it should work well?

3.) For simplicity's sake I'm eyeing a small tube reservoir/pump combo. My Phanteks case has a reservoir mount right beside the GPU, kinda between it and the upper exhaust grille.

So, what do you all think? A res/pump combo, full GPU block, and 140mm rad sound like a good setup?
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Alphacool GPX blocks aren't true full coverage blocks. They're a universal mount GPU cooler with a "full coverage adapter". They don't actively cool anything but the core. They count on the heat sink / full coverage adapter to cool everything else. They're decent blocks, but just be aware that you'll still need decent air flow to keep the rest of the components on your GPU cool.
 
Koween said:
I think you should try to get a 240 or a 280 radiator instead of a 140. Maybe move the front radiator to the top and install the new one in the front. You should be planning to add a cpu in to the loop sooner or later and getting a bigger radiator now may be a better choice. But, right now, the temperatures seem to be good and it is not needed.
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I don't know. I'm not really sold just yet on the idea of combining my CPU and GPU loops. I realize it might be pointless, but I like them to be independently controlled based on their component temperatures. I'll think about it some more though. The temps... I'm not sure what I'm hung up on there. Maybe I was just expecting cooler temps.
Vellinious said:
Alphacool GPX blocks aren't true full coverage blocks. They're a universal mount GPU cooler with a "full coverage adapter". They don't actively cool anything but the core. They count on the heat sink / full coverage adapter to cool everything else. They're decent blocks, but just be aware that you'll still need decent air flow to keep the rest of the components on your GPU cool.
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Yep! Figured that out later. I'm not too bothered by it, since my only alternative is nothing at all. My non-reference MSI PCB hasn't quite been adopted by watercooling folks yet, it seems; the Alphacool was the best block I could find.

Edit: okay, EK seems to make a full cover block for my model but that thing is ugly.
 
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Well, it's up to you, of course, but there is quite a lot of information, that under most circumstances a single loop gives the same or slightly better temps vs dual loop. That is because you would have a large total radiator area and if the cpu has a lower load, the gpu can use the radiators more to cool down and vice versa. And in the worst case you have the same radiator area per device as you would have separately. I suggest you google "dual loop vs single loop" if you need more info.
Maybe the only issue would be the need for higher pump head pressure, depending on the pump. But then again, one would need two pumps in a dual loop system.
 
Koween said:
that under most circumstances a single loop gives the same or slightly better temps vs dual loop
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if the cpu and gpu output the same amount of heat I could see it not making any difference but if one is hotter than the other you would see it. ie the cpu loop gets up to 65C under load but the gpu only gets to 50C. if you combine the two you get an average 57-58C so that's causing the gpu to be 7-8C hotter than on its own loop. is that not logical? i googled it and everything I found was from ~2010 and mostly "just trust us" remarks.

VanG, how are you controlling your rad fan in this setup? I did the red mod on my 280x with a h60 a couple weeks ago and I wired my rad fan directly into my cards fan header and my vram fan into the pump. the pump/fan is always at max but I set the rad fan so that it is controlled via a custom AB fan curve. I set it to 25% at idle up to 35C, it ramps to 60% from 35-50C, then it ramps from 60 to 100% between 60 and 90C. it has yet to hit 60C in game, 50-55C max, usually lower. if I toss furmark at it it'll hit 65C. highest ive seen the fan go was 65% in game and 75% in furmark. very pleased with the setup. cool and quite compared to the original hsf! your 60C sounds fine but what game is getting it there? my highest temps come from GTA5 and AOTS.
 
Koween ,

I'll probably leave it for now. I don't want to include my in the loop until I've got way more rad space than I need, and to me that means putting a 280 and a 240 in that case.

pendragon1 ,

I sandwiched a temperature probe between two pieces of TIM, and then between the back of the GPU die and the backplate. My mobo controls the fan based on the temp of that probe.

Right now the pump is going full blast all the time, but as soon as some cabling arrives in the mail, I'll control is via the motherboard too.

The games that gets me to 60 are Space Engineers and Final Fantasy XIV: ARR.
 
If water temperature would go up so much then yes, I would say that the hotter part would increase the temperature of the cooler device by that much. But, as fas as I know, coolant temperature difference between the coldest/hottest part of the loop is usually just a few degrees C.
Now, if you have two loops with a thermal load of 150w and a 240mm radiator each, you would soon get a certain temperature delta between outside air/coolant. Having a single loop with a thermal load of 300w and two 240mm radiators would give you the same temperature delta - you doubled the amount of heat but also doubled the radiator area. Combine that with the fact, that coolant temperature is pretty much the same in any part of the loop and you will see, that, depending on the load balance, single loop vs dual loop would only net a gain of a couple of degrees at most, if any.
VanG,
I am not telling or forcing you to have a single loop or anything, please don't get me wrong. It's just that with water cooling, if you want to save some cash, looking forward can be worthwile (like buying a larger second radiator, if you decide to buy one).
 
Koween,

I appreciate the advice and I'll take it into account. That you mention it and that I think about it, there's really no reason I shouldn't just buy a 280 and occupy the whole top of my case with it. At that point I could probably just add a CPU block and go single loop; that'd give me more rad space than I currently have in my whole system.

Thing is I'm wondering if I painted myself into a corner. What I don't know is if the pump in that Swiftech unit is the right pick for a whole system. It's an MCP30, which I read is an MCP35X that only goes to 3k RPM instead of 4.5k... but I'm too much of a noob to know what that means, practically speaking. XD
 
pendragon1 said:
if the cpu and gpu output the same amount of heat I could see it not making any difference but if one is hotter than the other you would see it. ie the cpu loop gets up to 65C under load but the gpu only gets to 50C. if you combine the two you get an average 57-58C so that's causing the gpu to be 7-8C hotter than on its own loop. is that not logical? i googled it and everything I found was from ~2010 and mostly "just trust us" remarks.

VanG, how are you controlling your rad fan in this setup? I did the red mod on my 280x with a h60 a couple weeks ago and I wired my rad fan directly into my cards fan header and my vram fan into the pump. the pump/fan is always at max but I set the rad fan so that it is controlled via a custom AB fan curve. I set it to 25% at idle up to 35C, it ramps to 60% from 35-50C, then it ramps from 60 to 100% between 60 and 90C. it has yet to hit 60C in game, 50-55C max, usually lower. if I toss furmark at it it'll hit 65C. highest ive seen the fan go was 65% in game and 75% in furmark. very pleased with the setup. cool and quite compared to the original hsf! your 60C sounds fine but what game is getting it there? my highest temps come from GTA5 and AOTS.
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You could try to plug everything into the pwm splitter that the Evolv includes, and plug said splitter onto the motherboard. T

Koween said:
If water temperature would go up so much then yes, I would say that the hotter part would increase the temperature of the cooler device by that much. But, as fas as I know, coolant temperature difference between the coldest/hottest part of the loop is usually just a few degrees C.
Now, if you have two loops with a thermal load of 150w and a 240mm radiator each, you would soon get a certain temperature delta between outside air/coolant. Having a single loop with a thermal load of 300w and two 240mm radiators would give you the same temperature delta - you doubled the amount of heat but also doubled the radiator area. Combine that with the fact, that coolant temperature is pretty much the same in any part of the loop and you will see, that, depending on the load balance, single loop vs dual loop would only net a gain of a couple of degrees at most, if any.
VanG,
I am not telling or forcing you to have a single loop or anything, please don't get me wrong. It's just that with water cooling, if you want to save some cash, looking forward can be worthwile (like buying a larger second radiator, if you decide to buy one).
Click to expand...

It is not that simple. You forget one of the most important principles of water cooling efficiency... and that is heat-density. Simply put, any GPU out there produces a huge amount of heat... but widespread over a big enough area, which translates into a very low heat-density. A cpu, on the other hand, produces half the heat but at quarter the area, which means that its heat-density is much, much higher, and thus you require a better system in order to cool the cpu as efficiently as you would cool the gpu.

So, the problem with dual vs single loops can be narrowed down to this: do you stress BOTH gpu and cpu at once? If you do, heat from the gpu will affect the cpu far more the gains you will obtain by combining rad area. On the other hand, if you don't stress both componentes at once (IE you game, because such applications stress the gpu at 100% but rarely does the cpu go higher than 50%) a single loop is far more efficient because you use all your rad area at once.

Imo, I would only consider going dual loops if, like I said, i would stress everything are once, or If I had 2 or more gpu's and had the ability to install plenty of rads.


VanGoghComplex said:
Koween,

I appreciate the advice and I'll take it into account. That you mention it and that I think about it, there's really no reason I shouldn't just buy a 280 and occupy the whole top of my case with it. At that point I could probably just add a CPU block and go single loop; that'd give me more rad space than I currently have in my whole system.

Thing is I'm wondering if I painted myself into a corner. What I don't know is if the pump in that Swiftech unit is the right pick for a whole system. It's an MCP30, which I read is an MCP35X that only goes to 3k RPM instead of 4.5k... but I'm too much of a noob to know what that means, practically speaking. XD
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Whatever you do, do not install the rad on the top of the case. It is simply too restrictive to allow a decent airflow through the radiator. Instead, put the radiator on the front of the case. The single 140mm with integrated pump could go on the top, because a single 140mm shouldn't be starved for air, at least not so much.

Regarding how powerful the MCP30 is... the problem is that performance scales with waterflow, at least until you hit 1-1'5gpm. So, the problem with the MCP30 is that, alone, on a cpu-only loop, it barely registers 1gpm. But still, now you have your kit and I would deffinitely use it, but I suggest you try to use a not very restrictive cpu block in order not to starve the system for waterflow.
 
prava, 10-4 on the high-flow waterblock.

However, hold up a minute on the rad placement. I see where you're coming from, but I'm not convinced just yet, and here's why:

1.) The top of that Evolv looks restrictive as hell, but it's vented almost all the way around that top panel save the front, and there's a good few centimeters between the rad bracket and the top. Just using fans, I can vouch for the exhaust airflow.

2.) Maybe you can provide some guidance on this because I'm confused on whether it's important or not: one of the reasons I don't like my current setup is because I'm heating up intake air with my CPU loop before it gets to the GPU rad. If I take that Corsair AIO out, I'll replace it with intake fans, bringing only cold air in the front and exhausting only through rads. Wouldn't this be a better setup?

Finally, a question for you: do you think a 420 rad (which is what I'll basically have if I add a 280) @ 30mm with some good fans (maybe Vardars) be enough? i7-4790k, stock clocks, GTX970, overclocked.
 
VanGoghComplex said:
prava, 10-4 on the high-flow waterblock.

However, hold up a minute on the rad placement. I see where you're coming from, but I'm not convinced just yet, and here's why:

1.) The top of that Evolv looks restrictive as hell, but it's vented almost all the way around that top panel save the front, and there's a good few centimeters between the rad bracket and the top. Just using fans, I can vouch for the exhaust airflow.

2.) Maybe you can provide some guidance on this because I'm confused on whether it's important or not: one of the reasons I don't like my current setup is because I'm heating up intake air with my CPU loop before it gets to the GPU rad. If I take that Corsair AIO out, I'll replace it with intake fans, bringing only cold air in the front and exhausting only through rads. Wouldn't this be a better setup?

Finally, a question for you: do you think a 420 rad (which is what I'll basically have if I add a 280) @ 30mm with some good fans (maybe Vardars) be enough? i7-4790k, stock clocks, GTX970, overclocked.
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As a fellow Evolv owner myself (I love mine in Galaxy Silver! I'm required to share, ofc ;) )

RDvvRfv.jpg


and after checking for the options the case offers because I do have several liquid cooling parts lying around I found out this:

Some users on OCN rerported a HUGE improvement in temperatures once they separated the top and front panel. To do so they simply took the pieces out and un-screwed the screws used to attach said pieces to the case. By doing this you make the panels not to sit flush with the case (something I would probably not be ok with) BUT you increase 2x the surface that will be used to take air in. Food for thought ;) What I'm saying is that the case will be starved if you try to put too many fans on the same side. IE I honestly believe that 2 x 140mm on the front shouldn't suffer too much, but anything more than a single 140mm fan on top might push it a bit. Still, and knowing that you have no other chance, it is better to have 280mm with not so good airflow rather than 140mm rad with good airflow. That much is clear to me.

At the moment you are worried that by using your gpu-rad as an exhaust it is in fact recycling hot air from the front rad. That is completely true, but gpu's aren't as sensible as cpu's are to water temperature and, thus, it isn't really of any concern. Isn't it optimal? Hell no. But does it really matter if the gpu sits at 68ºC or at 60ºC? Hell no either. Want to experiment a bit? Turn both the front AND the back rads as intakes... and use the top as exhausts. Yes, such option isn't precisely good because dust will enter via the back fan... but that could be solved by a simple dust-filter.

My take on this? Put the 140mm rad on the top and another 280mm rad on the front. Both as intakes and setup as a single loop. Then, block (you will have to use wood, cardboard or anything similar) the path so that air can only get to the top rad by the top and not from the inside of the case (can find the pictures I found on the overclock.net topic if you want me to look for them). And you would be set. I actually looked into low-restriction, high-performing cpu blocks and it seems that the best candidate is the WATERCOOL HK IV - basic edition (the cheapest one).

flowbar.png


http://www.xtremerigs.net/2015/04/22/watercool-heatkiller-iv-cpu-water-block-review/4/

It also happens to be one of the best cpu blocks available on the market AND it isn't very expensive.

In any case, 420mm of total rad surface would be more than plenty for the setup you plan to cool down. Heck, you could even add another gpu into the mix so long as you don't stress everything at 100% at once.
 
prava,

Thanks for the info!

Good to see another Evolv owner! This is by far the best case I have ever built in.

You've given me a bit to chew on, so I'm gonna come clean: I outfit my character in Dark Souls with what looks best first, and performs best second, if you get my drift.

Aesthetics are important to me. If I put a 280mm rad in the top of my case, my loop will be incredibly compact with short tubing runs, and it'll all be located in the top rear corner of my case. I'm unabashedly biased towards that look. Plus, with that front rad out of the way, I can use the HDD sleds that came with my case and hopefully that'll quiet them down some... the head noise from HDDs reverberates through that beautiful aluminum chassis like nobody's business when they're mounted down below.

Given that, I'll mull it over for a while. Buying parts will probably be a slow-trickle sort of thing, so I've got plenty of time to think about how I want it to look when I put it all in.

Thanks for the research on the CPU block, too! That was about the only part I hadn't investigated yet. =)
 
VanGoghComplex said:
prava,

Thanks for the info!

Good to see another Evolv owner! This is by far the best case I have ever built in.

You've given me a bit to chew on, so I'm gonna come clean: I outfit my character in Dark Souls with what looks best first, and performs best second, if you get my drift.

Aesthetics are important to me. If I put a 280mm rad in the top of my case, my loop will be incredibly compact with short tubing runs, and it'll all be located in the top rear corner of my case. I'm unabashedly biased towards that look. Plus, with that front rad out of the way, I can use the HDD sleds that came with my case and hopefully that'll quiet them down some... the head noise from HDDs reverberates through that beautiful aluminum chassis like nobody's business when they're mounted down below.

Given that, I'll mull it over for a while. Buying parts will probably be a slow-trickle sort of thing, so I've got plenty of time to think about how I want it to look when I put it all in.

Thanks for the research on the CPU block, too! That was about the only part I hadn't investigated yet. =)
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I feel you. One of the reasons I bought this case was the different yet elegant solution for the HDD's. They simply look stunning and seem to be floating. For that reason I know I will not put a rad in the front of the case, ever. Unless I happen to no longer need 3.5" HDD's which... for the time being, is highly unlikely.

Do tell on how your research ends!
 
Koween said:
...as I'm 99% sure that after you finish this, you will want to put your cpu into the same loop.
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You called it, Koween.

One question on active cooling. My mobo has temperature sensor headers and the ability in the BIOS to control fans based on that temperature. My case came with a powered 6-channel PWM splitter so I can have one mobo header control all my fans. Given those things, I want to get an inline coolant temperature sensor, put it in my loop, and have my machine control all fans and the pump based on coolant temperature.

Is this a common/good/bad practice? I've been scratching my head on fan control in a full CPU/GPU loop for a while now and this is the best I can come up with.
 
its doable via software maybe bios, speedfan or something similar

edit added maybe before bios as it might work if that's how youre doing now with your rad fan
 
pendragon1 said:
its doable via software maybe bios, speedfan or something similar

edit added maybe before bios as it might work if that's how youre doing now with your rad fan
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Sure, I know I'm equipped to do it. I'm just curious as to the effectiveness/pros/cons of controlling fans according to coolant temperature. =)
 
I think It may be better to use speedfan and control fan speeds according to gpu/cpu temperature, as that is what matters. Coolant temperature would work as well, but you would probably have to spend quite a bit of time finding out what coolant temperature corresponds to what cpu/gpu temperature when the loop reaches equilibrium. That is probably a more elegant solution, though, than using gpu/cpu temps.
 
Koween said:
I think It may be better to use speedfan and control fan speeds according to gpu/cpu temperature, as that is what matters. Coolant temperature would work as well, but you would probably have to spend quite a bit of time finding out what coolant temperature corresponds to what cpu/gpu temperature when the loop reaches equilibrium. That is probably a more elegant solution, though, than using gpu/cpu temps.
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Do you know if Speedfan can control a single PWM signal (to my powered hub) based on two temperature inputs?

As for cooling temp methodology... I game mostly, so I rarely put the hurt on both CPU and GPU at once. Here's what I'm thinking:

1.) Manually override all fans to max.
2.) Run CPU stress test until temperature stabilizes, record coolant temp.
3.) Run GPU stress test until temperature stabilizes, record coolant temp.

Whatever the lower of the two temps are will be the 100% point for my fans/pump, and I'll plot a curve based on that.
 
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