The GPU block that wouldn't die

THRESHIN

2[H]4U
Joined
Sep 29, 2002
Messages
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About 15 years ago I built my first WC setup. I bought two swiftech MCW60's off the forum's here and put them on two Nvidia 7900 GTO's in SLI. Worked great, eventually upgraded and decided not to do SLI again so sold one of the blocks. So check this out:

IMG_20221201_185537739.jpg


Over 15 years later in still using it. That's the same block that I managed to attach to my new AMD 6700XT last night. Works great, stays below 50C.

So far that block has cooled a 7900GTO, AMD HD 4870, HD 5770, HD 6850, GTX 970 and now the 6700XT.

I can't even remember what I paid for it but it wasn't much. Best investment I ever made.
 
That is awesome. Nothing beats quality.

That said, are you not concerned about VRM and ram temps? This is the reason I've always gone with full cover blocks.
 
I've got a couple of the white version I picked up from sidewinder for $20ea, right before their going out of business sale. Ones still in the box, the other is on one of my old gtx580s. Still have a box of those sexy copper bga sinks as well ;) Swiftech knew what they were doing when they made the mcw60. Best universal blocks ever.
What I used to do, is get an Arctic accelero extreme III gpu hsf for my backup card and when I converted that rig to water the mcw60 was a perfect drop in replacement. Heatsinks didn't have to be adjusted at all, just drop it in, hook up the tubing and zip tie a 120 to the card.

Great post OP!
 
so an interesting update with this one. i've gone back to the stock air cooler. it feels weird, i haven't had an air cooled video card in over 15 years.

here's what happened. i made some changes since that pic was taken, the big silver voltage regs had heatsinks. had problems cooling the VRM chips....issue is they're about half the width of those copper ram sinks and there's some small resistors right next to them that are a little higher making attaching the heatsinks an absolute nightmare. eventually i lined up the row of heatsinks with thermal tape only covering half the width (over the resistors). used a thermal pad on top of the VRMs just like stock cooling. attached them with a small amount of super glue on the resistors. seemed to hold and conduct heat well.

except i kept getting occasional crashes....i do folding and i found i'd get a crash every couple of days. GPU was well cooled at under 50ºC tops.

so went back to the stock cooler and magic....it's just fine. working night right now, but it'll have been running furmark AND folding at full for 3 days in the morning when i get home.

i'm a little confused as to what is going on here. could be those problematic VRMs were in fact not as well cooled as i had thought? or, i wonder if this was absence of thermal throttling. keeping the GPU temp lower, would it run at a higher clock for longer? can anyone think of something else i've missed?

on a side note, i have been quite impressed with the stock air cooler. it's actually very quiet, far cry from the older ones i remember. so now i'm wondering if i should bother with water cooling the GPU. it runs fairly quiet and from what i'm seeing with modern GPUs overclocking is very limited. seems around 5% give or take on air. might be able to squeeze a little more with water if it worked right. not sure it's worth it.

however, if i attempt this again i have an idea. instead of a 120mm fan up to the card, remove stock heatsink and put the stock fan overtop. i could force a fan speed with the drivers to just be on at all times since it wouldn't be GPU based. the fan has standoffs that raise the fan off the card (for the heatsink) and is screwed to the metal backplate. pretty sure i can fit that water block under the fan, add nylon washers if it needs more.

anyhow, any thoughts appreciated.
 
It's pretty cool that you were able to attach a block from a completely different GPU. That's the definition of having a "rig". You literally rigged it yourself lol. Good work.
 
It's pretty cool that you were able to attach a block from a completely different GPU. That's the definition of having a "rig". You literally rigged it yourself lol. Good work.
well ultimately it failed so i'm not sure i'd call it good work as of yet.

it's an old universal GPU block. been adapting it to cards for years now.
 
I'm still using a Swiftech MCW50! I have made many adapter plates over the years to keep it going. It's currently on a MSI RTX2070. Almost 20 years in daily use. On my CPU, I'm still using a Swiftech MCW5000! (custom adapter plates too) I figured why replace something that works. The copper/aluminum blocks have held up great. A small amount of corrosion has occurred with both blocks. The 20 year old MCP600 water pump, also runs great.
 
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I've had a Swiftech MCP655 in almost continuous 24/7 use since around 2008 (downtime for system upgrades, etc.) I've got a spare that I bought around the same time, but it's basically unused because this one doesn't seem to want to die. They sure made them to last.
 
This is the first GPU generation that I haven't water blocked for a very long time as it just isn't necessary anymore. The size of coolers on gpus these days negates the need for it and I'm quite happy with that anyway as it reduced the cost by nearly 200 bux and no worrying about leaks either.
 
Yeah, given the efficiency of current GPU coolers and the cost of quality water blocks, it's hard to justify WC if you're upgrading with any regularity.
 
This is the first GPU generation that I haven't water blocked for a very long time as it just isn't necessary anymore. The size of coolers on gpus these days negates the need for it and I'm quite happy with that anyway as it reduced the cost by nearly 200 bux and no worrying about leaks either.
I'm starting to come to the same conclusion. I used to insist on putting my video cards on water for the fan noise and the extra cooling capacity for overclocking. These days it seems there's very little benefits to either. As you've said, the coolers are much bigger and better designed now so fan noise is way less than it used to be. Sure I can drop gpu temps with water, but it doesn't really help modern cards overclock much further. The returns are so low that it's not really worth it anymore.

Damn shame, I have fond memories of pushing my old GPUs to the brink of disaster :D
 
Yea same here. These days I find myself using chill ,frame rate limit or power limit to dial back the thermal output or noise depending on the seasonal temperature differences.
 
I have the same gpu cooler together with an apogee for my cpu. Sitting unused in a box for almost 10 years now. Together with the other parts.
Was thinking about using them again, just not sure if they are still trust worthy cause of the rubber gaskets.
 
This is the first GPU generation that I haven't water blocked for a very long time as it just isn't necessary anymore. The size of coolers on gpus these days negates the need for it and I'm quite happy with that anyway as it reduced the cost by nearly 200 bux and no worrying about leaks either.
The irony of that statement is that it's because of the comically oversized heatsinks on typical RTX 4080/4090 cards that I want to waterblock one - not because I need lower temps and less fan noise, but because I'm not happy about having to give up a whopping four expansion slots (Zotac 4080/4090 heatsinks are 3.5 slots thick) up for one GPU.

Yeah, I cram more than GPUs into those PCIe slots. Is it too much to ask to have some room for a sound card, an A/V capture card, and maybe even a high-end Ethernet/Infiniband NIC? Hell, take off all those M.2 slots from the motherboard and put 'em on a PCIe riser, I'd be happier with that too.
 
The irony of that statement is that it's because of the comically oversized heatsinks on typical RTX 4080/4090 cards that I want to waterblock one - not because I need lower temps and less fan noise, but because I'm not happy about having to give up a whopping four expansion slots (Zotac 4080/4090 heatsinks are 3.5 slots thick) up for one GPU.
It's why I settled on a 3080 FE. These 3/4 slot 12"+ cards are redonkulous to say the least.
 
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