Need help with watercooling for my video card

[Edit] If you'd like me to make the images smaller let me know

Hello!

I currently have a Swiftech h320x2 prestige (7700k cpu - I'm considering sending it to siliconvalley to get it delidded), and added a Evga 1080ti FTW3 videocard.

The problem is, the video card can get ridiculously hot. I would like to have the unit water cooled. I looked at EK's website and used their configurator. I decided to go with a triple fan slim radiator, selected the pump, etc.. And the total came to about $500+ usd. That's quite a bit of cash, not to mention that space is pretty tight (it's a bequiet! darkbase 900 pro case) My question to you guys is, can I just get the waterblock and add it to the loop on the prestige? Would it be enough? Or should I buy the bullet and get the stuff I mentioned from EK? Here's a few pictures of my current build (by the way, once it's all settled in I will probably cut the length of the tubes for the cpu, redo the cabling, etc):

You'll probably be fine adding that card to your loop, not "optimal" but fwiw I've only got 360 + 240 rads (and not great ones - xspc ax series) in my loop cooling a 7700k @ 5.0 (1.36v) and a 1080 Strix OC - my CPU temps at 100% load for a few hours sit under 60c and when gaming my 1080 never gets above 45c.

Looking over the specs on the swifttec it shows that it can handle other parts. I be real careful
though. That setup seems prone to pump/ seal failures.

I think thermal wise u will be ok just adding the vc wb to the system.

When i first started wc i had my cpu 91watt and a 280 gtx on a loop with just a 240 rad. I ran that
setup for years and never had any heat related issues.

Begs the question... What is ridiculously high mean? I have an FTW3 in a Phanteks Eclipse P400 (temporarily) with an 4770k @ 4.6 1.325 vcore. Both our cases suffer from air flow issues and the icx cooler on the GPU doesn't help matters in this situation blower style GPU are preferred. However, My FTW3 idles in the blue 34c to 40c and maxes out at 83c using Furmark and 72c gaming BF4. The fans never go to 100% with full load and don't run at all when GPU is idling with the standard bios and fans don't kick on til 40c and curved upward as temps rise. In other words default fan profile handles the temps very well. If this is what you call ridiculously high then I'd disagree. The slave bios increases power limit and fan profile from 117 to 127 and always off to always on respectively. You may benefit from the always on aspect of the slave bios particularly at idle but expect higher temps at the max when the demand is high due to the higher power limit. I would not use Precision XOC as there are many bugs yet to be resolved and could be the source of your troubles. The fan curve is built into the bios (both) so you do not need XOC. That said, with an overclocked CPU I would not attempt to cool the GPU too with the ST Prestige but the triple (360) would work but you will still be faced with an airflow restricted case not ideal for watercooling and may not prove to be a wise investment with the results you are looking for.

Get the block, add the card to your existing loop. It'll be enough to cool it, but whether or not you are happy with the performance is subjective.

If the temperatures are unacceptable, buy another rad and two fittings, and add that.

Soft tube makes such experimentation pretty easy.

I ended up finding a few old computer parts I had and sold them, so that covered for the watercooling set up lol


Now my only thing is I bought the EK-XRES 140 Revo D5 PWM water pump + res combo. I noticed it has a 4-Pin Molex and a 4-Pin PWM FAN connector. I'm not sure if I connect the 4 pin to my power supply or not? Or will just having the PWM connector on my motherboard be sufficient? I've been out of the loop ( haha couldn't resist the pun) for a long time now.

Jehuty said:

I ended up finding a few old computer parts I had and sold them, so that covered for the watercooling set up lol


Now my only thing is I bought the EK-XRES 140 Revo D5 PWM water pump + res combo. I noticed it has a 4-Pin Molex and a 4-Pin PWM FAN connector. I'm not sure if I connect the 4 pin to my power supply or not? Or will just having the PWM connector on my motherboard be sufficient? I've been out of the loop ( haha couldn't resist the pun) for a long time now.

Click to expand...

The molex is the power for the pump, the 4 pin fan connector should just be for rpm reporting to the motherboard

The old rule of thumb is one 120mm rad per device. So if you have a double fan rad (240 mm) then yes thermally you should be fine. I see this unit you have is a triple....it'll handle the heat load easily.

I run a custom and old system I built about 10 years ago. Triple black ice pro rad I think. Back then I built it to handle an opteron 165 and two nvidia 7900 GTO's in series. Worked wonderfully. I don't bother with multi gpu now, but I still use the exact same parts. The gpu block is an old universal that cools the chip only. Turns out Nidia hasn't changed the mounting since the G80 days lol.

If you end up with a universal gpu block like me, make sure to add heatsinks to the ram and any power components that might need it.

Personally, I like to cool the CPU first in the loop and then video card after. My reasoning is you're more likely to get better overclocking from the CPU, so I'll keep that cooler and take advantage of it.

I'm far too lazy to set up a parallel system. Yes temps would be better for the gpu, but in my experience not enough to care.