Water or air cooling?

[SmAsH!]

Hey all, recently i came across a 5970 with both air cooling and an ek waterblock with it for free, would it be worth it to buy a full watercooling
system for the gpu, are the temps that good?
Also, if i sold either the water block or the air cooler, what sort of prices do you think i could get? The air cooler is the asus reference.

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[TehZomB]

It all depends on what you need, if the air cooler just isn't doing it for you, then yeah maybe watercooling is the way to go. A complete watercooling system won't run you much more than a couple of good fans (assuming a gpu and cpu setup), especially if your mining you'll get that money back in no time. In my honest opinion, 70c on a graphics card is perfectly acceptable, but if it makes you uncomfortable or is spreading to nearby parts, you should probably upgrade.

[SmAsH!]

too add in watercooling, itll run me about $150, so it might be worth it.
I plan to o'clock the shit outta this card anyway

[allinvain]

too add in watercooling, itll run me about $150, so it might be worth it.
I plan to o'clock the shit outta this card anyway

If you plan to "o'clock the shit outta" it then water cooling is the way to go bro. Now go and make that video card squeal like a pig!

[Kluge]

Cooling can only do so much. If you have a problem with heat -- that's when you should consider relatively expensive liquid cooling. If you have no heat problem, you're wasting money, over-complicating things, and exposing yourself to a catastrophe if you installed the cooling system improperly.

The ASUS 5850s I purchased are excellent at dissipating air (unlike some awful Visiontek cards I had shipped to me and promptly returned). Even on hot summer days, my GPUs chill out at 51-58*C with a core speed OC from 725 MHz to 910 MHz. Liquid cooling would be a poor investment for me. Perhaps, however, you will find you have a problem with heat. Perhaps your card runs very hot and the drivers reset when it reaches a certain too-high temperature, or perhaps your cards have a poor warranty and you can't risk running them a little warm. Those would be scenarios you should consider liquid cooling.

In any case - wait. Wait and see if you have a problem with heat before you try to solve it.

[rezin777]

Water cooling is a waste of money for mining.

[SmAsH!]

hmm, i guess, its just ive heard of some people getting their cards 80-100c and im a bit worried about lifespan etc...

[rezin777]

hmm, i guess, its just ive heard of some people getting their cards 80-100c and im a bit worried about lifespan etc...

They have no case fans. Or ambient temps of 70.

[Kluge]

Dunno if I'm going to get any hate for this, but.... maybe you should consider not using a case at all. They often restrict airflow, which can be good for certain parts, but getting good airflow over the important parts is really a task for an expert. Instead, you could simply set up your MoBo on a desk and run a high-velocity fan over the whole thing. Especially for gfx cards with big heat pipes jutting out of it, it can be dramatically more efficient than a smart airflow design in a case. It can get messy, but a modular PSU will help out a lot. I'll post a picture of my setup when I have the last three PCs finished when my shipment of graphics cards arrive. Need to clear off the empty beer bottles, too 

A mining PC has no use for more than one hard drive (and possibly not even that if you run Linux off a flash drive) or anything like a CD-ROM drive, so clutter isn't really that big of a deal. Mid-range+ MoBos also often come with power & reset buttons right on the MoBo so you don't have to manually bridge the power pins to turn the PC on.

At the very least, it looks very interesting.

[allinvain]

Sure open air designs are a viable alternative, but I think the biggest factor is controlling ambient air temps. Has anyone built some sort of "air tunnel" cooling system? What I mean is a duct or fan puling in air from one direction and exhausting the hot air from the gpu area to the outside air.

[SmAsH!]

Yeah, noise factors in too, but the reason I was opting for a case was for resale when I'm done with mining, I mean, what gamer would pay for a pc with no case :p and if the waterblocks free.... I mean, sure I could sell it, but id be likely to get half the retail for it, and with the open cooling, it's winter here and I'm quite near the bottom of the southern hemisphere so ambient temps can be as low as 10c

[warweed]

both have there problems thou there are 2 points of failure on a air cooled A fan seize B heatsink plugged (minimal) water blocks you have to worry about leaks pump failure and heat exchanger failure and again you have to have a fan to move air from the "radiator" the benifit thou is you can get MUCH cooler temperatures

[bbulker]

I didn't feel like spending $150 on a water cooling system, so I got a Twin Turbo Pro from Arctic Cooling for $40. I'd have to say this was a great buy. The thing is so damn silent and keeps my 6850 under 60C while mining at only 40% fan speed.

[bcpokey]

I didn't feel like spending $150 on a water cooling system, so I got a Twin Turbo Pro from Arctic Cooling for $40. I'd have to say this was a great buy. The thing is so damn silent and keeps my 6850 under 60C while mining at only 40% fan speed.

You know that's not a half bad idea, I have a bunch of reference 5870s, which are awesome for overclocking, but the downside is the cooler is like a damn leafblower. I was considering water myself because I'm sick of potentially going deaf (and if I don't go deaf I get massive hardlocks, bringing down my system, costin me monies). I hadn't really considered popping off the cooler and replacing it with a relatively inexpensive aftermarket cooler, sucks that it messes with my profit margin, but it probably messes with it less than building a big ass water rig will.

I'm not sure how people are building $150 water coolers, unless you're only cooling a single card?

[allinvain]

Those after market GPU coolers are really effective but please do remember that hey will vent the heat INSIDE your case, so you better make sure you have some really good method of pushing cold air from the front and exhausting out the rear.

[gigabytecoin]

Cooling can only do so much. If you have a problem with heat -- that's when you should consider relatively expensive liquid cooling. If you have no heat problem, you're wasting money, over-complicating things, and exposing yourself to a catastrophe if you installed the cooling system improperly.

The ASUS 5850s I purchased are excellent at dissipating air (unlike some awful Visiontek cards I had shipped to me and promptly returned). Even on hot summer days, my GPUs chill out at 51-58*C with a core speed OC from 725 MHz to 910 MHz. Liquid cooling would be a poor investment for me. Perhaps, however, you will find you have a problem with heat. Perhaps your card runs very hot and the drivers reset when it reaches a certain too-high temperature, or perhaps your cards have a poor warranty and you can't risk running them a little warm. Those would be scenarios you should consider liquid cooling.

In any case - wait. Wait and see if you have a problem with heat before you try to solve it.

If you have no problem with heat, you aren't overlcocking enough yet.

[Kluge]

If you have no problem with heat, you aren't overlcocking enough yet.

Cards become unstable beyond a certain point regardless of temperature. I could be using dry ice to cool my cards and (if it didn't ruin them...), they still wouldn't get beyond where they are now.

[pun1sh3r]

I didn't feel like spending $150 on a water cooling system, so I got a Twin Turbo Pro from Arctic Cooling for $40. I'd have to say this was a great buy. The thing is so damn silent and keeps my 6850 under 60C while mining at only 40% fan speed.

Another vote for the Twin turbo pro. I replaced the stock hsf on my 5850 Xtreme because it was too loud for me......im mining at a constant 48C at 28% fan speed with it. Definitely worth the $30 i paid for it.

[bcpokey]

Those after market GPU coolers are really effective but please do remember that hey will vent the heat INSIDE your case, so you better make sure you have some really good method of pushing cold air from the front and exhausting out the rear.

I picked up 2 HAF series cases, and since the reference coolers are almost entirely shrouded, the high case flow provides almost no benefit, so I'd almost welcome a reason to have invested in the case 

[allinvain]

Those after market GPU coolers are really effective but please do remember that hey will vent the heat INSIDE your case, so you better make sure you have some really good method of pushing cold air from the front and exhausting out the rear.

I picked up 2 HAF series cases, and since the reference coolers are almost entirely shrouded, the high case flow provides almost no benefit, so I'd almost welcome a reason to have invested in the case 

First off ensure that you have a nice gap between the cards. What you can do is put some plastic piece or something there to open up a gap between the cards.

It's the front intake fans that matter the most, so if the stock fans aren't pushing enough CFMs then get higher speed ones or maybe one of those "Silverstone Air Penetrator" fans.  Direct them at the graphic card's intake vents at the far end of the card.