Who has a 970 under water?

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melk

[H]ard|Gawd
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I have my 4790k under a H105 with great results, and while I've thought about doing the same for my 970, I never got around to it. However with some recent developments I think I have been swayed to put in under water until I can get a AIB 1080 Hybrid card.

DIY GTX 1080 'Hybrid' Results – Higher Stable Clock, 102% Lower Thermals

This really showcased for me how crazy a difference there is with your GPU under water. Hugely lower temps = sustained higher OC. Pretty simple.

I have a MSI Gaming 970 which as long as I keep the fan manually set to 80% while gaming, will hold 1500 mhz. Not bad at all. However, I know that my next card will absolutely be a 1080. Between short supply + huge demand at first, and wanting to let all the different companies get their own custom version out the door and see how they compare, I know I am realistically looking at another 6 months bare minimum, and probably a little longer, before I actually pick and choose and have a 1080 in-hand.

Meanwhile, I can go out right now today and buy a bracket and AIO cooler and be up and running. While I might not net a whole lot more headroom for OC, if I get anything at all it will be a worthwhile investment to me for the price. It should also be quieter than having to run the fans nearly full blast to sustain 1500 clocks. (I play at 4k so I am really asking a lot of the 970. The huge difference in visual fidelity just from the sheer resolution is worth the lower fps for me. Typically it holds at worst 40-45 fps in the most demanding game I play (MWO) and will sometimes be steady 60 fps. I do get some pretty big momentary drops though which is what I'm hoping the 1080 will take care of the most, minimum fps).

Anyway! Do you have your 970 on water? What has been your experience? Which kit are you using on it? Is the Kraken G10 pretty much the only bracket option out there?
 
I don't think I'd mess with water cooling a 970 for six months or less. The one I had ran fairly cool with the Windforce cooler, and really seemed to be constrained more by its relatively limited memory than it was by a lack of GPU horsepower, meaning that even if you can get another 100MHz out of it through overclocking, you won't necessarily see much benefit in games because the GPU is idling anyway.

That's just how I remember it though, maybe it's different in the games you play. Regardless, I say save your money and use it to get better cooling on your 1080, either by water cooling that card, or just getting a better air cooler in the first place.
 
IMO for both the 970/980 there isn't much value added to running water. Even with '70%' asic quality i've been able to get +200mhz w/ the reference cooler and still stay under 80c on the 970's/980's i've owned. Maybe i'm lucky, or maybe +200mhz isn't that great. But the end result was nearly 1500mhz (stable w/ hours long gaming sessions) and i'm not sure having a better cooler would have been worth much as even w/ additional cooling anything much past the 1500mhz mark is going to be rough to achieve for such minimal gains.

If you need more shader horsepower for half a year why not pick up another 970 and go SLI? As far as I recall SLI scaling for crysis engine games is usually at least 50% which should be enough for what you want w/ MWO. You can pickup used 970's for pretty cheap now. I'm seeing a MSI gaming 970 used on ebay for $205 right now as of this post. Far less effort just dropping a second card in as well vs. replacing the cooler, and at least when you go to resell both 970's in half a year they'll hold their value better then a card w/ an aftermarket cooler.
 
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My GTX 970 is currently cooled using a Corsair H75 and NZXT G10. I have a small case (Corsair Air 240) and it gets toasty inside while gaming. My primary motivation was reducing noise, since my case sits on my desk 3 feet from my head. It was a PITA getting everything installed and running properly, but I'm very pleased with the result.
 
2-3 months is a much more realistic figure. Any money spent on a 970 at this point (on anything that can't be easily reused) is money thrown away.
 
whrswoldo said:
My GTX 970 is currently cooled using a Corsair H75 and NZXT G10. I have a small case (Corsair Air 240) and it gets toasty inside while gaming. My primary motivation was reducing noise, since my case sits on my desk 3 feet from my head. It was a PITA getting everything installed and running properly, but I'm very pleased with the result.
Click to expand...

What are your temps with the G10 like?
 
OP here. Well we are about to find out. Snapped some more blades of the fan that was already broken so it is super unbalanced now. Bought a Kraken bracket + X41 off someone here on the forum so I should have it installed here in a few days. Will take pics when I do!
 
My X41 +G10 kept my 980 Ti nice and cool and ~80MHz faster. With my new 1080 ACX 3.0 that I got from step-up I'm getting 39C max and 2202Mhz! (I'm very lucky)

I'm betting you'll be pleased with your results with the X41 and G10. Not astounded, but pleased.

Oh, and if you have a backplate or a frontplate you'll likely need to remove them unless you buy some longer screws. The frontplate might have to go regardless, unless you do some cutting on the frontplate.
 
melk said:
Anyway! Do you have your 970 on water? What has been your experience? Which kit are you using on it? Is the Kraken G10 pretty much the only bracket option out there?
Click to expand...

I did, and I ran a few shorty 970s under water. They all ran at 1500mhz or higher. I used an old XSPC 670 waterblock. A lot of those old arse blocks can be used sometimes with little modding.

GTX 670 waterblock on a GTX 970 - Page 6

GTX 670 waterblock on a GTX 970 - Page 15

I had a PNY come in today. The PNY is a direct fit on the XSPC, however it didn't make good contact on the core for some reason so I switched to PK3 from CLU and the temps were good. Did I say good, I meant ludicrous lol. I was benching at 35c load at over 1500/2000mhz core/mem.
Click to expand...

437e19bb_9701500.jpeg
 
X41 + bracket arrived yesterday. Installed it using Artic Silver paste.

Dropped temps by 25c under load. From 70-72c max to 45c max. Amazing.

Took what was an already great OC (1506 mhz) all the way up to 1566. Honestly hard to believe. Perfectly stable with an hour+ of gameplay testing in Doom, Shadow Warrior 2, and Mirrors Edge Catalyst so far.

This is at 2160p resolution, mostly High settings, v-sync off so it's murdering the card (MSI Gaming 4G 970), power is nearly always at 100-109%. On newer games listed above it'll push 30fps @ 4k. Older games I can do 60fps @ 4k no problem. Woo!
 
WmGzgC3.jpg


For comparison:

Stock 1342mhz @ 2160 = 38 fps
OC 1566mhz @ 2160 = 42 fps
OC 1566mhz @ 1440 = 84 fps
 

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Not to be a dick, but... why spend the money on a 970?

$50+ when you could sell the thing and spend 2x that, get a real improvement in performance, not just a couple FPS.

Don't get me wrong -- glad you're happy with it. Just never seen the point of putting aftermarket money in to mid level hardware.
 
Because I've already decided I'm not going to sell it. Not for $175 and dropping by the minute. It'll go in a second box for the kids once I get around to choosing a GTX 1080 for my rig.

1566 mhz stable. Not as cool as 2000+ Pascal but I'm damn pleased with the $330 I spent on this 970 two (2!) years ago. Bang for the buck fer sure. Plus I'll be getting $30 bucks rebate soon, luuulz.
 
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