Air Cooled GPU vs Water Cooled GPU

Anime_Fan

[H]ard|Gawd
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So I was thinking today (dangerous) :p Anyway I have noticed lately that the performance of some after market air gpu coolers is similar to those of gpu water blocks. I just recently purchased 2 6800s and was planning on adding them to my water loop but I have been reading around and am having second thoughts.

It seems that coolers like the zalman vf700-cu really perform almost as well as blocks like dangerden's acetal maze 4 from some reviews I read today. It seems that the idle temps are almost always within a few degress of each other. The only notable difference I can see is the load temps are noticeably lower but nothing to drastic.

So I am asking you fellow OCers who have switched from aftermarket air coolers to water how big of an OC difference did you find?

I'm thinking for around $50 I can get 2 zalman coolers as opposed to 2 danger den acetals for $100 or so and still get close to the same performance.
 
The difference between w/c and air cooling is large depending on your system.

A maze 4 might not be able to perform well in a low flow and poor performing radiator and weak pump.

If you pick your parts right, the idle temp is a few degrees over ambient and could be atleast 20C lower than load temps which is the most important thing.

You want your load temps as low as possible which allows for higher overclockability and cooler system.
 
Personally, I did not find the performance of the Zalman 700cu to be much better than the stock XFX solution on my 6800GT.
Watercooling (currently with a Swiftech block...moving to the DD acetal next week) was a major improvement.
 
On my ASUS 6800:

Zalman VF700 = 38c idle
STASIS 6800C5 = 35c idle
Stock cooler = 54c idle
Aqua-Computer waterblock = 34c idle

This is with all fans on highest settings and such....
 
Thanks Dillusion :) Those numbers are helpful :) Do you remember what your loads were like?

Sprocket

Do you recall your stock and zalman temps?

I think I am leaning towards the zalmans because they will get me a pretty decent overclock I think for the $$$. I dont think I can afford two danger den acetals and a new rad at the moment :( But we'll see what xmas brings :p
 
My load temps were within +-15c of those idles, aside from the WC block, my idle only goes up about 8c on water, with a hefty OC on this card....I don tknow if your going for silent still- but with those air cooler on high (to achieve those temps above) were too loud to sleep with.
 
Well I have a seperate bedroom from my computer ;) You think that dd pump you sold me has enough flow for 2 gpu blocks and a cpu block? I'm thinkin it probably does. Jeez so many options :(
 
I can tell you on my 7800 gt's, load temps are what are important not idle. Load would reach 70c+ with stock cooling. On water I reach at most 42c. That's a 30c difference. No air cooler is going to give you that kind of performance...
 
my 6800 stock is like 42-43 and load is like mid 50s :) I agree that water cooling definately has the advantage in load temps though :) What pump do you have plywood?
 
Anime_Fan said:
Well I have a seperate bedroom from my computer ;) You think that dd pump you sold me has enough flow for 2 gpu blocks and a cpu block? I'm thinkin it probably does. Jeez so many options :(

it should, as long as you get a non-restrictive block such as the DD maze4, or the polarflo TT acrylic VGA block (which is a sweet block btw, had two of them) and itll match your cpu block to boot
 
On my X850XT overclocked to 610/630 from 520/540 (more than most go, so plenty of heat)

stock cooler:
idle: 35 C
load: 96 C

water- maze4 acetal:
idle: 27 C (same as cpu)
load: 39 C

Even though there was no real diffrerece for me on the max overclock it was worth it for me just for the noise reduction and the fact I don't like seeing it run at 96 C, although I'm told that its just fine at that temp. The fan on the 850xt is a 2 slot solution and works decently, but is incredibly loud at 100%
 
Waterhazard said:
Even though there was no real diffrerece for me on the max overclock it was worth it for me just for the noise reduction and the fact I don't like seeing it run at 96 C, although I'm told that its just fine at that temp. The fan on the 850xt is a 2 slot solution and works decently, but is incredibly loud at 100%


Noise was definitely a deciding factor for me also. And water cooling let me get another 20mhz on my core clocks...
 
I think I'll add 2 gpu blocks to my xmas list :) What the heck only the best for me LOL. By the way nice setup Plywood, very classy :)
 
you can see my water cooling build and thread here

external WC box

My Maze4, blew away Air cooling on my 6800 GT.

Stock cooling was around 72C under load.

The Artic 5 brought that down to about 62C under load.

The Maze 4, brought it down to a max of 48 C under load.

It also effected on OC.

also used Rivatuner's "find optimized frequency"

Stock of course is 350/1000 with the artic cooler it was 372/1120
With Maze 4 it was 438/1170



just my 2 cents!
 
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