Liquid Cooling VS Hybrid Cards

[mikeadamwood]

I have another thread dedicated to building my Octane render workstation but thought this suited a new thread.

I was going to build my own machine but I've managed to get some help from a friend of a friend who works for Scan...I've explained the whole want 2 GPU's but will expand to 4 as I go so need room for 4 Hybrid 1080's. We were trying to work out locations for fans from the 4x Hybrid cards..And he said you know what you might aswell just go for a full liquid cooling solution.

At first I was like no chance! But I've been weighing up some of the advantages of a full liquid loop with standard cards as opposed to Hybrids. Besides saving myself space I would also be reducing noise and maybe reduce power consumption too, it would definitely be a cleaner build.

I am a little afraid of the whole liquid cooling so maybe someone could just reassure me that this is the way to go? Do people just go for the Hybrids because they fit into their current systems or to save cost? Is Liquid the way to go if you put that little bit extra upfront? I know Hybrids are still liquid but quite frankly, they don't scare me half as much as a full liquid rig.

[carmichael84]

I had the same conundrum my self not long ago. I was doing my first PC build and I was pretty scared of the custom water loop so I opted for 4 980ti hybrids. I used the Thermaltake x9 case which is huge and fit 3 of the hybrid radiators on the top of the case and one on the back exaust + a corsair 115i on top as well. It just seemed way more cost effective than adding a custom loop. I replaced the fans on all the radiators with Noctua fans and it's pretty quiet. Temps when rendering never go over 50 degrees and that's with a pretty hefty overclock. I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out.

[Phantom107]

Interesting topic, personally I would go with hybrids regardless (possibly combine with an air cooled card if the hybrids don't fit). The thing that worries me with a full liquid loop is that I would lose the flexibility... what if I want to replace a card, what if a card fails? Also what about warranty...right now if one of my hybrids would leak I can simply call EVGA and have them replace it. What is keeping them for blaming you that you did your full liquid the wrong way? I don't like spending a ton of money on cards and then not having warranty.

[mikeadamwood]

I had the same conundrum my self not long ago. I was doing my first PC build and I was pretty scared of the custom water loop so I opted for 4 980ti hybrids. I used the Thermaltake x9 case which is huge and fit 3 of the hybrid radiators on the top of the case and one on the back exaust + a corsair 115i on top as well. It just seemed way more cost effective than adding a custom loop. I replaced the fans on all the radiators with Noctua fans and it's pretty quiet. Temps when rendering never go over 50 degrees and that's with a pretty hefty overclock. I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out.

This is exactly what I was going to do only with the 1080 Hybrids (the 980ti Hybrids are a bit difficult to get hold of here). Do you render for long periods of time with these temps? I notice a lot of benchmarking for still images for animation not so much. We are currently CPU rendering at work which takes DAYS for fairly noisy renders, trying to get them to switch to Octane but need more evidence to put forward.

Interesting topic, personally I would go with hybrids regardless (possibly combine with an air cooled card if the hybrids don't fit). The thing that worries me with a full liquid loop is that I would lose the flexibility... what if I want to replace a card, what if a card fails? Also what about warranty...right now if one of my hybrids would leak I can simply call EVGA and have them replace it. What is keeping them for blaming you that you did your full liquid the wrong way? I don't like spending a ton of money on cards and then not having warranty.

This is very true, I also already have a 980ti which I could use primarily for a display card until I add additional cards. Would the uncooled card dissipate heat to the other cards, thats my only concern with this setup.

[smicha]

OK, so I read this and I get your points guys. But trust me - when you do your custom loop for the first time it may seem to be scary - but once you done with it you'll never go to air nor hybrid, literally never.

1. First of all - WC makes sense only for 4 GPUs; 3 cards may operate very efficiently on air (one of my builds) provided you have extra space between them - with 5 or 7 PCIe mobos (there are plenty of them).
2. You cannot damage a GPU when applying a waterblock unless you do something crazy - applying a waterblock is a simple stuff and takes about 30 minutes

3. You don't loose warranty when applying a waterblock - contraty - your gpu will last longer.
4. When one of gpus goes down draining a well desing loop (like mine ) takes 5 minutes. So you may apply extra flow blocker on sli connector and work on others until you get a new one.
5. Hybrids are great but more noisy than a custom loop waterblocks.
6. Cost of a custom waterloop for 4 gpus compared to 4 hybrids is around + 600EUR net but you benefit from a cpu being also watercooled, lower temps, lower noise, and better OC potential.
7. Custom loop is the only way to go for more than 4 gpus in one case (not talking about risers and rack noisy 8 gpus solutions for 20k$), but this requires cutting DVI ports what I've been doing for some time,..... but power of 20 watercooled gpus is tempting, isn't it?

Cheers,

S.