GPU Heat Management and Watercooling

[Leiurus]

I have bought the Asus P9X79 WS motherboard and I intend to load it one Quadro 4000 for display and 3 or 4 EVGA GTX 580.

The Quadro 4000 has the reputation to reach high temperature even when idle, and the GTXs are known for heating quite a lot when gaming, even though they are not at full load for extended period of time, which will be the case when computing.

Will the heat generation be managable or will they fry within a few months? The case is massive and has good cooling perormance (Lian Li PC X2000F), but will such a cluster of cards be a frying pan unless I go for watercooling?

If standard air cooling is a big no-no, I might have to buy the hydrocopper version of the GTX. I would really appreciate to avoid the hassle of building a watercooling system (even though the loop would be quite simple as the CPU is cooled by a closed loop Corsair, therefore the system should cool the GTX only). I'm pretty good at building rigs but I never built any watercooling system, so I don't feel so confident in going down that path...

Any input from experienced users would be highly appreciated

[steveps3]

I have 3 x 560GTX ti cards which I run using their standard coolers and whilst they get warm, they do not get excessively warm even when thet are OCd. Maybe 80c is the hottest they get. The big downside is that they do get rather noisy when they are at full load. It is for this reason that I may consider water cooling. Sorry I have no experience of the quadro so I don't know what it would be like to use as a screen driver. I have the coolermaster Storm Trooper case which I think is of a similar size to your case.

[Leiurus]

Thank you for your feedback.

I can deal with the noise as these cards are pretty silent idle, having them getting loud at full load is not an issue as it is not permanent.

Just wanted to make sure that such a cluster of cards would not burn them down within a year or two. I love the concept and the aesthetics of watercooling systems but as I said I'm not familiar at all with it and I don't really have enough free time to get through an extensive trial and error process, especially if making a mistake leads to ruin thousands USD of hardware.

[steveps3]

I'm not familiar at all with it and I don't really have enough free time to get through an extensive trial and error process, especially if making a mistake leads to ruin thousands USD of hardware.

Same here. It is not a cheap option either. water blocks for 3 cards is going to be £200 and then there is the pump, reservoir, rads, fans, tubing. They all add up quite quickly.

[acc24ex]

Or this?

http://www.overclock.net/t/1203528/offi ... ka-the-mod

http://www.overclock.net/t/1086286/comp ... orsair-h70

I was thinking of doing this mod some day, seems cheaper and less things to worry about

[Reggie]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1086286/complete-build-log-zotac-560ti-corsair-h70

I was thinking of doing this mod some day, seems cheaper and less things to worry about

Haha yea that's a really cool mod, the H70 goes for about $70 I think and that would save a ton of money! I would think even the parts alone would be more than worth the $70. But if you had 4 video cards, you would need something like this. Very cool idea though!

[glimpse]

Why to bother when there are premade solutions? Like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814133398 =)

*with opening up the card you avoid the waranty..&that's very bad..cos if youare not precise enough mounting the wblock you end up with fried card =)

DIY'ed colling loop is cheeper if you have at least several cards. Guys use to fold 24/7 with 7x GTX580 rigs - that run stable and cool enough.

[Leiurus]

I wouldn't take the risk to modify a H series, whatever the model...The example above seems to work, but I've digged the closed loop CPU cooler quite a bit and stumbled upon much more failures than success when it comes to modding these products.

On top of that, all of these products are designed to cool one GPU or one CPU, not sure that they would do the trick with 4 or 5 cards in a row.

Another option would be to go for this kind of product:

http://www.swiftech.com/MCR-X20-Drive-Rev3.aspx

The radiator, pump and reservoir being integrated, the only extra work would be to build the loop between the cards. The product has a very good reputation in term of perfomance but a terrible one in term fo noise, with Rev1 and 2 the direct contact between the pump and the radiator lead to high rattling noise, don't know if it has been corrected with Rev3...

[jurweer]

I wouldn't take the risk to modify a H series, whatever the model...The example above seems to work, but I've digged the closed loop CPU cooler quite a bit and stumbled upon much more failures than success when it comes to modding these products.

On top of that, all of these products are designed to cool one GPU or one CPU, not sure that they would do the trick with 4 or 5 cards in a row.

Another option would be to go for this kind of product:

http://www.swiftech.com/MCR-X20-Drive-Rev3.aspx

The radiator, pump and reservoir being integrated, the only extra work would be to build the loop between the cards. The product has a very good reputation in term of perfomance but a terrible one in term fo noise, with Rev1 and 2 the direct contact between the pump and the radiator lead to high rattling noise, don't know if it has been corrected with Rev3...

Hi Leiurus

thanks for that link! Seems like an interesting product.

I have 5 antec 620's in my case cooling a CPU and 4 GPU's (a quadro 4000 and 3 580's). Max heat under load with the case closed are ok, but i'd prefer them to be lower when rendering for a longer time.
the 580's stay around 60-65, the quadro doesnt come higher then 35-40. Stock cooler on the quadro made its temp go up to 70-80 idle! so thats for sure a big improvement.
Although the performance is not that bad, it is a very rough solution. The MCR pump/rad looks like a good solution to the mess that's now present in my case

[glimpse]

insane, but guy folds on this 7x GTX580 rig.