7970 without ramsinks or VRM cooling?

[Evil Scooter]

Been looking to putting some aftermarket cooling onto my 7970. The stock cooling cools fine with a custom fan profile but at 50% speed it's a bit louder than I'd like. I've seen people putting the antec and corsair closed loop CPU systems on their GPU's. Those systems are getting cheap.. far cheaper than a good custom air cooler or setting up a water loop. But I am concerned about the rest of the components getting hot as even most of the custom air coolers include separate ramsinks and heatsinks for the VRM's. How important do you guys think cooling the ram and VRM's is on the 7970's?

 

[XacTactX]

GDDR5 doesn't need ramsinks in general, but if you are going for maximum clocks not having ramsinks may (again, may) hold you back. The VRM section on the other hand, should get some heatsinks. It is digital, and has 5 phases, but it uses DrMOS, and it has about the same surface area as the 5870 and 4870 did. Yes, the VRM needs some heatsinks.

 

[Evil Scooter]

GDDR5 doesn't need ramsinks in general, but if you are going for maximum clocks not having ramsinks may (again, may) hold you back. The VRM section on the other hand, should get some heatsinks. It is digital, and has 5 phases, but it uses DrMOS, and it has about the same surface area as the 5870 and 4870 did. Yes, the VRM needs some heatsinks.

Ya.. I might just pick up a ramsink kit if I decide to do this. The Antec Kuhler H20 620 is currently on sale at Frys for $39 after MIR. I have a $20 rebate card from Corsair so my out of pocket for the rig would be $20 after the MIR. Add $15~$20 for a hand full of ramsinks with some thermal adhesive and my end cost is still less than 1/2 of what an aftermarket air cooler would run.

 

[EquaLiZr]

I bought some Zalman ram heatsinks and cut them in half. Perfect fit for the VRM's (when i get down to doing it)

 

[cageymaru]

Now this discussion piques my interest! I'm too scared to do a real water loop, but modding an aftermarket cpu water cooler onto a video card sounds like fun. Any links to what people are doing and some pics? Going to replace my SLI setup with a single card solution soonish. Kinda waiting on Nvidia to relase info on their new cards first. I'd love to see what people are doing to mod a single card.

Thx!

 

[Evil Scooter]

Now this discussion piques my interest! I'm too scared to do a real water loop, but modding an aftermarket cpu water cooler onto a video card sounds like fun. Any links to what people are doing and some pics? Going to replace my SLI setup with a single card solution soonish. Kinda waiting on Nvidia to relase info on their new cards first. I'd love to see what people are doing to mod a single card.

Thx!

Plenty of people are doing it already with zip ties and such. I'd probably fab something a little more creative than that but the zip ties seem to work well enough. Google "Antec Kuhler H20 620 gpu". You should get a few hits. The only thing that partially worries me is (much like the aftermarket air coolers) in most cases you need to cement ramsinks to everything no longer cooled by the stock cooler. Myself, I'd like to be able to return the card to some semblance of a stock card after I'm done. I'm thinking I might go with the CPU closed loop system and then use a plate like this :VGA heatsinks for hybrid solutions. to cool the ram and VRM's. I'm ok with having to modify the swifty part to accomodate the closed loop GPU cooler as it's only like a $30 part.

 

[eclypse]

Its only around a $100-122 for a full coverage blocks guys.. buy one and be done with it.

 

[Evil Scooter]

Its only around a $100-122 for a full coverage blocks guys.. buy one and be done with it.

Except with a full coverage block I need to provide the rest of the loop. Rad.. pump.. reservoir.. etc.

 

[eclypse]

Except with a full coverage block I need to provide the rest of the loop. Rad.. pump.. reservoir.. etc.

True, though you dont need a res.. you would be much better off in the end with temps though.