watercooling my 5850: full cover or gpu only?

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terroh8er

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I read this review of the Koolance full cover versus the MCW60: http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=938&page=6

It seemed as though the MCW60 performed about the same for memory, shader, and GPU temperatures, whereas the stock temperatures were way higher. In the review, he says:

However, the results indicating the memory temperatures trail behind the passive heatsinks by only 1 degree, and we believe that is due to the imperfect mounting of the block and a different type of thermal pad used for each block.
Click to expand...

Does anyone know what passive heatsinks he is talking about? There are none that come with the MCW60.

I'm new to "new hardware" .. I used to be old school. Sorry for the question, I know you guys can't read my mind.. I'm just not sure if I'm missing something obvious. If I can get away with a high-flow, half-the-price, universal waterblock and get the same amount of cooling, then why wouldn't I?

Thanks!
 
terroh8er said:
Does anyone know what passive heatsinks he is talking about? There are none that come with the MCW60.
Click to expand...
Small generic copper or aluminum GPU heatsinks that you attach onto the vrams and ram. You can buy them at most PC component e-tailers and most W/C'ing specialists seperately to the waterblock. Swiftech sells some along with the MCW60, but these are no better or worse than other heatsinks.

terroh8er said:
If I can get away with a high-flow, half-the-price, universal waterblock and get the same amount of cooling, then why wouldn't I?
Click to expand...
Because the half price block relies on air cooling to cool the vrams. This requires reasonable airflow close to the GPU's and is especially important for Xfire/SLI setups or GPU overclocking. Full cover waterblocks do not have this disadvantage since you are watercooling the vrams. But, as you note, they are not universal and more expensive.
 
echn111 said:
Small generic copper or aluminum GPU heatsinks that you attach onto the vrams and ram. You can buy them at most PC component e-tailers and most W/C'ing specialists seperately to the waterblock. Swiftech sells some along with the MCW60, but these are no better or worse than other heatsinks.
Click to expand...

I thought with the recent ATI cards you could remove the copper plate that covers the GPU while leaving the rest of the heatsink over the memory. I hope that is the case because those memory heatsinks are awful. Either you use thermal tape and they fall off after heating up or you use epoxy which can cause the entire memory chip to fall off due to the extra weight.
 
terroh8er said:
Does anyone know what passive heatsinks he is talking about? There are none that come with the MCW60.

I'm new to "new hardware" .. I used to be old school. Sorry for the question, I know you guys can't read my mind.. I'm just not sure if I'm missing something obvious. If I can get away with a high-flow, half-the-price, universal waterblock and get the same amount of cooling, then why wouldn't I?
Click to expand...

Swiftech does make card-specific "full-cover" air-cooled heatsinks to go along with the MCW60. http://www.swiftnets.com/products/HD5800 HEATSINK SERIES.asp

Like echn111 said, the true full-cover block watercools all the components on the card, while the MCW60 cools only the GPU and relies on other heatsinks to cool the rest of the card.


RVWinkle said:
I thought with the recent ATI cards you could remove the copper plate that covers the GPU while leaving the rest of the heatsink over the memory. I hope that is the case because those memory heatsinks are awful. Either you use thermal tape and they fall off after heating up or you use epoxy which can cause the entire memory chip to fall off due to the extra weight.
Click to expand...

The 5850 has a two-part heatsink where you can remove the GPU core part while leaving the RAM/VRM cooler installed. The 5870 has a single large heatsink for the entire card. I'm not sure about other models.
 
i plan on using my trusty mcw-60 on my 5870 here in a few weeks. But instead of going with one of the swiftech unisinks i think i'm gonna go with one of the thermalright vrm coolers and some ramsinks I already have on hand. The vrm sink will have its cooler sitting right in the middle of my case airflow, whereas the swiftech would require a little more work I think to keep cool. I also think the thermalright might be easier to sell later if I needed to whereas the swiftech unisink is pretty much required to be used with a waterblock.
 
Having messed around with my 5850 and after market cooling, i have a few thoughts on the subject.

1st question is, do you plan to OC or are you water cooling for the silence?

I will give my answers for both.

If you plan to OC:

Go for a full block. The VRM's on the 5850's are the hardest thing to keep cool. They work HARD. Harder than the 5870's (like in the review u link).

Those after market stick on ram sinks will not work. You could buy the switch tech block or the thermalright one, but neither are really needed. You can just add the stock cooler plate back on, which will work just as well any you could buy after market. The stick in the mudd is, you will need Direct airflow on the blocks no matter what you buy. You will need fans pointed at, and close to the VC's block right on those blocks.

So i figure if your going to do all that, you should go full block, and keep those bastard VRMS cool.

Now if you dont plan to OC:

If you have good airflow around the card, or can get a fan pointed at whatever block you decide to use, any of the three solutions above should work, though in my experience so far, the thermalright vrm block, works best with just case air flow.


Just my 2 cents. Those VRMS on the 5850's are the hardest part to cool, so if it was me, I would go full block, if I was watercooling, other wise you are going to have to find a way to get some good airflow to whatever solution you are going to use on the vrms, which sort of defeats the purpose of water cooling in the 1st place if you ask me.
 
bradyapba said:
Having messed around with my 5850 and after market cooling, i have a few thoughts on the subject.

1st question is, do you plan to OC or are you water cooling for the silence?

I will give my answers for both.

If you plan to OC:

Go for a full block. The VRM's on the 5850's are the hardest thing to keep cool. They work HARD. Harder than the 5870's (like in the review u link).

Those after market stick on ram sinks will not work. You could buy the switch tech block or the thermalright one, but neither are really needed. You can just add the stock cooler plate back on, which will work just as well any you could buy after market. The stick in the mudd is, you will need Direct airflow on the blocks no matter what you buy. You will need fans pointed at, and close to the VC's block right on those blocks.

So i figure if your going to do all that, you should go full block, and keep those bastard VRMS cool.

Now if you dont plan to OC:

If you have good airflow around the card, or can get a fan pointed at whatever block you decide to use, any of the three solutions above should work, though in my experience so far, the thermalright vrm block, works best with just case air flow.


Just my 2 cents. Those VRMS on the 5850's are the hardest part to cool, so if it was me, I would go full block, if I was watercooling, other wise you are going to have to find a way to get some good airflow to whatever solution you are going to use on the vrms, which sort of defeats the purpose of water cooling in the 1st place if you ask me.
Click to expand...

For me it all came down to price. Back when I bought my watercooling and a 7800GT, i could have bought a full cover block for 80-100 bucks and then another 80-100 when i moved to a 8800GT for another full cover. Now my 8800GT is dead and I'm on a 5870.

If I'd bought 3 full covers i'd be out ~260-300 bucks.

Instead I bought an MCW-60 and a set of their ramsinks for the 7800GT which cost me 60. I added some cheap vrm sinks to the 8800GT for 10. I'll probly drop one of the sweet thermalright vrm sinks on my 5870 for ~30 after shipping.

That's a total of 100 bucks, a ~1/3 of the price I would have spent had I gone full cover each time instead.

Yes I might have been able to sell the FC's afterwards, but I kept the 7800GT till well after the 8800GT came out, I doubt I would have gotten much at all for it.
 
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