AX240 rad enough for SLI 670s?

[Drunk SI]

Hey there, first time poster, bit of a noob and virtually clueless RE watercooling (I have been having a browse of the stickies though!) but I have been considering it.

Basically I have 2 4gb KFA2 EX OC 670s in SLI and the temps get stupidly hot, Being SLI and being in an R4 case I expected temps to get higher but the top card has been insane, for a while it was even reaching 97 degrees! And I suspect, with that apparently being the maximum temp of the 670 that it wasn't going any higher because it started throttling down rather than the cooler actually dissipating enough heat to stop it climbing further.

I tried all sorts of things to try and improve airflow and nothing really helped, in the end I changed the bios so that I could set the fan higher than 70% and reapplied the thermal paste on the gpu and I can now stop the top fan going beyond 84 or so after an hour or so in Heaven and I'd call it a day at that but the noise of it really gets on my nerves. When I've got my headphones on it don't matter so much but ideally I'd like to get the noise down and if I can get the temps down too that's great.

I started looking into the G10 but I don't have an AIO to hand so I kind of started thinking if you're going to mess about like that why not go the whole hog and watercool the cards properly, with a loop you can expand later when you have more money?

So for now I was wondering if sticking two universal GPU blocks on the 670s, some copper heatsinks on the vram and vrm (if I can find vrm2 anyway, there's already a bank of mosfets with a heatsink across them so I figure that'd do for that at least) and having them go to a 40mm thick 240mm rad (which is the maximum size I'd be able to fit in the R4 without hacking it apart, which I don't want to do as when I'm done with this case I could give it to a family member or something if it's in good nick) like the ax240 do the trick?

I've fallen in love with the H440 so eventually I imagine I'd get that, another rad and include the cpu in the loop. The thing is watercooling appears to be really expensive. Part of me argues that yeah it is but once you've got a rad you always have it and can always use it, blah blah blah, and part of me thinks spending hundreds of pounds now to stick universal gpu blocks on these cards might be silly if the same money could get a more powerful single card solution in a year or two if I just continue to put up with the noise.

I would just get rid of one of the cards but I have a 1440p monitor and games just look crap unless you render at the native res and my mate flogged me the second card at a decent price (decent at the time, anyway).

Anyways, enough waffling on. Cheers for any advice anyone can give or thoughts on relative value, whatever.

Drunk Si.

 

[rubix_1011]

You'd need more than just a single 240 rad...you're looking at least in the neighborhood of a 360 to even have a shot with good fans. With OC cards, you are are definitely looking at a THICK 360 to pull this off. When you start adding in your CPU (if you decide to).

So, to give you some perspective, you could essentially take the money you'd be spending on this GPU loop and buy yourself a new 980 that would perform better (assuming you'd also sell the 670's). Even so, you're probably looking at a decent $375/300 GBP just getting the loop started.

Is it fun and addictive? It certainly is. The great thing about watercooling is, once you start building up your components, you can typically continue to use them over and over without much need to change (pump, radiators, CPU blocks, universal GPU blocks, reservoir, etc). I've used the same CPU block for about 5 years, changing the mount 3x. Some manufacturers build new mounts for blocks, some do not. Pumps, rads and reservoirs of course, never really need to change if they are well chosen and work well for you.

 

[tinydez]

yeh, 360 rad or 240 with another 120 thick radiator. Also make sure you get an adequate pump, anything over 1000lph with that kind of loop, xspc x20 750 is a good start but would need a boost when used with an elaborate cooling loop. Good fans are a necessity as well, anything with good static pressure, personally i like the jetflo 120's but they can be considered loud by some. Sp 120 are also very good but the new cooler master silencio fp's are comming out soon with 4.8 static pressue. Also, dont use coolants of additives, especially the pre mixed stuff, the colouring and stuff clogs up the system and stains the tubing and doesn't actually stay non-conductive for too long. Distilled water and a biocide or a few silver coils will be perfect.

 

[rubix_1011]

If you are going with a larger loop, you'd do yourself a favor by skipping the XSPC X20 pumps and go straight to a D5 or DDC Laing pump of some sort. You simply aren't going to get the flow and head pressure needed for a larger loop with one of those bay-res pumps in the XSPC kits (unless of course, its a D5 or DDC bayres combo )

 

[Drunk SI]

Ok, cheers for your help guys. I kind of suspected that trying to cool both cards off a slim 240 would probably be pushing that poor little rad too far! I was just hoping to do it in bits to spread the cost out over time.

I've had a bit of a think about my options and the more I think about it it seems like a waste of time to do like half a loop now and then move everything to a different case and expand on it. Might as well bite the bullet and do the lot.

So with that in mind how do you guys reckon an alphacool 360mm ut60 and a 240mm ut60 would do at lowish rpm with the sli cards and the cpu(3570K)? I've kind of gone off the H440 a bit, when I first came across it all I saw were positive reviews and great builds and when you're about to pull the trigger on it you start seeing loads of people moaning about airflow and having rubbish temps! And I need space for at least 1 HDD in addition to my SSDs so even sticking one hdd in the bottom of the h440 would cause problems with getting a 360 in there so I was thinking about a Corsair 750D with the 360mm ut60 in the top with a single set of fans and the 240mm ut60 in the front also with a single set of fans and I should still be able to have an hdd cage further inside the case. I was leaning towards a d5 pump and a phobya tube res, ek thermosphere gpu blocks and whatever the ek cpu block that's basically a clean looking black square.

I think as long as future titles aren't totally bereft of SLI profiles performance isn't something I'm really struggling for even at 1440p. I don't really have an issue turning settings down now and then and even if you have the most beefy 980 going it won't be long before something new comes out that does like 5fps more or some game has some ridiculous graphics settings that push well beyond its limits. It's a tricky one but to be honest I think my urge to just do the loop as a project is overriding the more rational and frugal part of my brain at the moment. When I bought my mate's 670 off him I justified it to myself by saying the dual gpu setup ought to last me at least a couple of years and it's only been one so far so I should probably keep my word to myself and stick with them and like we've said, once you have this watercooling stuff you always have it to use in later builds.