WC a 1080 TI by adding onto exicting loop.

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surfhick reborn

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Now I'm cooling a 4790k with a triple radiator. I think that's overkill. At least until I go for more cores. Then I may want to find a better block than my Apogee if I can find one.
Over Black Friday I bought an MSI Duke 1080 ti. I've had thoughts about water cooling it but am unsure about some things. That is if I can find a compatible block for it. I'm unsure about some things though:

1. Is my 360 rad. enough to cool my 4 core CPU and my ti? My reservoir will let me mount another pump so I can expand to 2 loops eventually. Also have room for another 240 rad. in the case.

2. I've looked and looked and looked. Anybody know of a compatible full cover block for the Duke cards?
 
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If you want to watercool, return that Duke ASAP. You can buy cards with full cover waterblocks, or if you want to choose your own block, you need a reference-design card.

You don't want to do two separate loops, ever. It's flashy, but not thermally efficient.

This is an important question: are you overclocking? If no, a 360 rad will be enough. If yes, you should plan to add that 240 rad as well.

Edit: Looks like Alphacool makes a NexXxos GPX block that fits the Duke. It's not a full-cover block, but it is more effective than a core-only block. It's basically a core-only block combined with a massive monolithic heatsink that covers your other components.

I've used one before. They're not bad, but a full-cover is far better for not that much more money.
 
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Thanks VanGoghComplex. Mainly I'm just looking at having it run as cool as I can. I'm not too thrilled with MSI's fan curve and the thought that I have to run Afterburner to have my own fan curve. The card already has enough to power my games at 4k 60hz. That's as fast as my monitor refreshes anyway.
 
Just get a Block and 2nd rad, or a bigger Rad, I think a Thicker or 2nd 240mm or 360mm could do the whole thing Feasibly. I mean get good and ok temps with a standard 240mm just need alittle more for a GPU.
 
surfhick reborn said:
Thanks VanGoghComplex. Mainly I'm just looking at having it run as cool as I can. I'm not too thrilled with MSI's fan curve and the thought that I have to run Afterburner to have my own fan curve. The card already has enough to power my games at 4k 60hz. That's as fast as my monitor refreshes anyway.
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Ah. Well in that case, the Alphacool NexXxos GPX block will be perfect. Just make sure you have decent case airflow, and you'll be set.
 
VanGoghComplex said:
Ah. Well in that case, the Alphacool NexXxos GPX block will be perfect. Just make sure you have decent case airflow, and you'll be set.
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It's worth it for the 1080, and kinda what id like to do later, maybe idk. 1060 is fine on air at 2100mhz, and I'm honestly ok with 2k...find some significant reason to go to 4k and more gpu power. Hope Everyone's happy to see that...running Rad! Man.

20171230_141831.jpg
 
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Looks like I have some research to do. I can mount another pump to my resevior so I'm thinking just making a 2nd loop with a 240 radiator.
 
surfhick reborn said:
Looks like I have some research to do. I can mount another pump to my resevior so I'm thinking just making a 2nd loop with a 240 radiator.
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You'll spend more on parts and you'll get poorer thermal performance than if you'd just used the same amount of rads in a single loop. I know it's counterintuitive, but it does make sense if you consider that you very rarely stress both GPU and CPU at once.
 
VanGoghComplex said:
You'll spend more on parts and you'll get poorer thermal performance than if you'd just used the same amount of rads in a single loop. I know it's counterintuitive, but it does make sense if you consider that you very rarely stress both GPU and CPU at once.
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Idk hooked up a 2nd 240mm and I don't think there is any difference, might be alittle warmer....hard to tell probably is...that other rad has smaller fittings....
 
VanGoghComplex said:
You'll spend more on parts and you'll get poorer thermal performance than if you'd just used the same amount of rads in a single loop. I know it's counterintuitive, but it does make sense if you consider that you very rarely stress both GPU and CPU at once.
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Another advantage to this is I could really clean up my case. Would lose quite a bit of that savings though. You are talking about one big loop with everything in series?
I actually like the idea of a top fill resevior then putting a drain in the bottom of the loop. That would make maintenance so much easier.
 
Batboy88 said:
Idk hooked up a 2nd 240mm and I don't think there is any difference, might be alittle warmer....hard to tell probably is...that other rad has smaller fittings....
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If you already had enough radiator to dissipate the heat on your components, adding a second one will do nothing for your temps. It will, however, allow you to run your fans at a lower speed to achieve the same amount of cooling your previously had.

surfhick reborn said:
Another advantage to this is I could really clean up my case. Would lose quite a bit of that savings though. You are talking about one big loop with everything in series?
I actually like the idea of a top fill resevior then putting a drain in the bottom of the loop. That would make maintenance so much easier.
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Yep, one big loop with everything in series is the best way to do it. You're also spot-on with the top-fill and bottom-drain plan.

You see things like show builds with dual loops, and they are pretty and expensive, but not practical. When you're gaming, you're hammering your GPU but your CPU will be at relatively light load for most games. With a dual loop your GPU only gets its own radiator, but in a single loop it gets both rads for the price of competing with your CPU. That's still a net win for your GPU.
 
I added a 1080ti to my 360mm radiator loop which previously just had my 5820k on it. It didn't affect the CPU temps at all. And this is with an entry level 400lm/h pump.

Hell, I was even able to put my fans lower so and still got decent temps (55c gpu/65c cpu in The Division at 1440p). Not awesome temps, but still better than air and I never hear the fans.

I plan on going dual loop eventually because I can run two different coolant colors for flashy/showoff purposes.
 
Hi everyone,

Again, thanks for your input. I ordered my parts and they should be in today. Going to have a fun weekend.

I did some looking around and it looks like my Duke uses the same block as a "Gaming" (MSI) card. I did order the Alphacool one for two reasons. There may be some slim possibility that if I upgrade cards I would only need to replace the plate. Secondly, my case has two fans blowing directly on the card. Power and memory should stay well within working tempuratures.
I have a HAF case that allows me to mount a 360 radiator. However, it's in the top. My last two cards have been blower style. After watching some videos, it seems that top mount is not the best for the CPU. The hot air from the card goes straight up in to the radiator. This might be why I've gone from around 30 degrees to 40 at idle. Water on the GPU will help this.
When Primochill came out with it's Typhoon res. I fell in love with it. One thing I didn't notice was that it didn't have a top fill port. I have to tilt my case back to fill my loop. I'm getting a new res. that has a top hole to make a fill port. The case even has a hole in the top to use for a fill port. I'll keep the Primochill in the case I ever feel the need to run two pumps. I'm hoping my D5 is enough to run the whole loop.

When I originaly built my loop, I neglected to put in a drain port. I was probably going to add it later but never did. Since I'm draining and disassembling it anyway, now is the perfect time to do that.

My HAF case came with a silver/grey inside. I took it apart and repainted it. Now it has a black and yellow theme to it. I found some yellow tubing so now even that will match.

Messing with the water setup can be a pain. A job. This time, I excited to play with it. Should be a great weekend.

Keeping EK in mind in case I'm not thrilled with the Alpacool.
 
It's all together. I should have just did this from the start. Or, bought a water cooled card. No, then I wouldn't have had the fun of doing it myself. Anyway my temps are way down. At idle I'm close to ambient. Within a few degrees. Both CPU and GPU idle at high teens to low 20s C. I did a little stress testing and was getting up to 95C on the CPU but wasn't breaking 50C with the GPU. So I lowered the voltage on my CPU a little. Not enough to change the clocks but a little. Now it doesn't break 65C under load. I'm happy. The GPU was running at about 54C at idle. Unless I opened up Afterburner and cranked the fans. Then it would come down to about 38C. It would go to around 75C when playing games with the fans cranked.

OK. Yellow tubing sucks. If this build comes apart I'm going back to clear or the orange wasn't bad. At least it was orange. The yellow is more of a light crappy greenish color. Not what I was looking for.
Why can't I figure out how to have a top fill port that is the top of the loop? I need to find a fitting that will fit the top of the resevior or get a radiator with a top (side) bleed hole. Mine is under some fans so I might be able to use a 90 degree fitting and run a line to my case's built in fill port. My drain port isn't exactly at the bottom of the loop but can be by removing the graphics card and letting it hang. I don't know why I have a hard time with this. It's not a hard concept. I just can't figure out how to accomplish this AND have something that looks decent at the same time.

This was a fun little project. I must say that Aquatuning was great in helping me. The shipment was fast too. 3 days from Kholn, Germany to North Carolina. It got here as fast as my fittings.
 
If it matters I added a 1080 to my ryzen 7 loop...I don't over-volt but it only raised my CPU temps about 2C. I have a 360mm rad too, if GPU prices come down I'm going to add another 1080
 
Yeah ajrettke33, I wouldn't mind adding another radiator to mine. With stock settings it's not needed. Will even take some over clock. However, I just want the thing to run cool and it's doing that. I don't know if the card is raising my CPU temps any or at all. It must be adding some heat to it. MY MB was over volting it and running it over clocked. Once I got that straightened out, the temps for both have been very good. Good luck on finding that other 1080.
 
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