Can I buy a aftermarket cooler for the 980 ti?

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Mendozer03

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Apr 25, 2015
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Can I throw something like a twin frozr or hybrid cooler on the gpu? I already bought an EVGA reference 980 ti. Will the aftermarket coolers be compatible?
 
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You're going to need the one made for the titan x. The 980 is a different animal.
As far as buying a standalone fan cooling unit you'll have to buy it used from someone who took it off their 980ti to put a water block on it. I will have an ACX+ 2.0 cooling unit as soon as my step-up 980ti comes in. If you want to trade for your reference cooler for it.
 
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Hmmm...EVGA site sent me to wrong link

http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=400-HY-0990-B1

Be aware that the radiator is insufficiently sized. A 120mm radiator is capable of about 80 watts of cooling with 120mm fan @ 1800 rpm..... add a 2nd fan and you are at about 95. The radiator will need to handle about 60% of the cooling demand as the card itself radiator shroud, tubes, etc will all radiate additional heat.

So you are good for about 125 watts of cooling outta that "hybrid cooler" or about half what the card generates at stock.....150 watts if you add a 2nd fan.

look at it this way..... people are putting H100i on their 84 watts CPUs (figure 135 watts at 4.8 GHz). So if they need 2 x 120 mm for 135 watts )67.5 watts per 120mm) ..... how does that same 120mm radiator do 250 watts (stock) ... 300 watts overclocked ? That's close to 5 times the load that the CPU puts on an H100i.

I'd use a EK Water Block and a Swiftech Pump / Res rad Combo if you are nervous about a custom loop.

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

 
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It doesn't work that way... you can't directly compare the TDP figure between a CPU and GPU like that. To begin with, the CPU TDP consist of the CPU only, while the GPU's number includes the entire card, including the VRM and VRAM etc., and it's before you even start taking into account real world application issues between the two like die sizes/IHS etc.

This is why my 4790k w/ a CPU-380i block with a MCR320 (120mmx3) radiator hits high 50s/low 60s under load, while my EVGA 980 Ti Hybrid OC'd @ 1400mhz / 7600mhz hits only high 40s under max load.
 
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No. First off, inclusion of the rest of the system is off topic, I only mentioned the "radiator". Yes, the block, pump, materials, etc have an impact but that's not part of the subject at hand.

Thermodynamics is thermodynamics, heat is heat..... the **radiator** performs no differently whether it is connected to a CPU, a GPU or an aquarium header which is what is generally used by test sites to test radiators. If the radiator is receiving 40C water, it doesn't perform any differently if it's coming from a CPU or GPU. Consult any site focusing on custom loop design and this will be readily obvious. Why do ya think they use a heat block to test radiators instead of testing them on a CPU / GPU ?

https://martinsliquidlab.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/alphacool-nexxxos-xt45-360-radiator/4/

Yes, the total wattage of the GFX card includes the GPU, VRM and VRM. The CPU's VRM is on the MoBo. You can add a MoBo block to cool this, custom loopers routinely do. But ignoring this for the moment and let's take a look just why that argument just doesn't have any hope of standing up. A MoBo with VRM, N/S bridges, power control, and all the on board LAN, sound and everything else might pull 30 watts, 40 if it's got PLX. 2 x 8GB of RAM about 6-8 watts.

Now a GFX card doesn't have all that load; it doesn't have the on board sound, LAN, ports to drive and everything else. DDR5 is far more efficient than DDR3 and there's a lot less of it, there's 150 watts from the MoBo going into just 2 GFX cards thru the PCIE slots.... so let's be generous and call it the cards VRAM / VRM on the card as 20 watts. A 980 Ti, over clocked easily breaks 300 watts.... taking off that 20, heck take off 40 and you are still left with TWICE the output of your 4790k.

And while a full cover GPU water block does include the card's GPU, VRAM and VRM, the hybrid CLC does not.... If you have done many builds on 7xx and 9xx series, using air and water cooling, one observation becomes immediately obvious. Water cooling oft provides no performance improvement whatsoever, and when it does it's marginal and likely comes from havng a cooler VRM. The CLC hybrid coolers provide none whatsoever because with the 7xx / 9xx series, we hit the voltage wall before than temperature wall (assuming you have a non-reference card and adequate case cooling).

Yes, you are correct... the VRAM and VRM are not cooled by the hybrid and this is its primary weakness. The performance of the non-reference 9xx will, if anything, be limited by the VRM which hybrid coolers in fact worsen unless you add yet another cooler as the EVGA hybrid does. Not that it is any more effective than the air cooled variety. For many CLC type GPU coolers, they cool the GPU, but the air cooling which previously cooled the VRAM and VRM is now gone.

As shown above, the heat generated by the GPU far exceeds that generated by the VRM and VRAM. On a full cover water block, the sheer thermal mass of the block, provides a large portion of the cooling..... when you design a custom water loop, you look for the radiator to take care of only 60% of the heat load because a significant portion of the heat is not transferred to the coolant but instead transferred to air inside the case from the large surface areas of the backplate / block. The CLC / Hybrid gets no such benefit. So no, taking off the minor loads from the VRM / VRAM does not even come close to offsetting the additional cooling provided by the thermal mass and large surface area of the full cover block and backplate on a full cover water block

For the heat addressed by the radiator, thermal performance is dependent primarily on 5 things:

-The wattage it has to handle
-The surface area of the radiator
-The speed of the fans .
-The material of the radiator ... CLC's have reduced performance due to aluminum
-The flow from the pump .... CLC's have low flow pumps

While the material and pump contribution is significant, the two largest contributors are the size of the radiator and the speed of the fans. The way you make up for an inadequately sized radiator is to provide high speed fans. And that's exactly what every CLC does. The high speed fans needed to offset the small surface area, is eliminates one of the primary advantages of water cooling and that is having a machine that is dead silent. And here, we don't only have to deal with fan noise but the pump noise commonly associated with CLCs and very pronounced on the EVGA 980 Ti hybrid

http://www.overclock.net/t/1558890/youtube-evga-gtx-980-ti-hybrid-review-updated/10#post_24099547

http://forums.evga.com/EVGA-Hybrid-980980TiTITANX-Loudness-level-m2354643.aspx

http://forums.evga.com/980-Hybrid-being-loud-is-there-a-fix-m2347905.aspx

The 980 Ti starts to throttle at 85C... so what is the significance / advantage of you running in the low 60s ? It has no impact on performance. Note also that my old 780s (pulling 294 watts each) are running at 39C with fans spinning far, far less than the hybrid is. The water cooled VRM is about 18C higher. Your VRM is not water cooled and if anything is limiting your OC, that would be it.

Of the 980 Ti's available, the EVGA SC is the one that puts the smallest load on it's cooling system as it's the poorest overclocker. In gaming, the G1 pulls 30 more watts than the EVGA SC

Model / fps / % overclock / Max Core / Max Memory OC
Gigabyte G1 134.8 131.4% 1512 2100 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_980_Ti_G1_Gaming/33.html
Palit Jetstream 133.1 129.7% 1515 2100 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Palit/GeForce_GTX_980_Ti_Super_JetStream/33.html
Asus Strix 131.7 128.4% 1472 2070 https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GTX_980_Ti_STRIX_Gaming/33.html
MSI Gaming 130.5 127.2% 1507 2040 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_980_Ti_Gaming/33.html
Zotac Amp 130.4 127.1% 1465 1990 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GTX_980_Ti_Amp_Edition/33.html
EVGA SC 126.8 123.6% 1491 1900 http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_980_Ti_SC_Plus/33.html
 
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No, it's not better. Things to consider....

1. if you're looking for top performance, I wouldn't look at EVGA since as you can see in above post, it comes in last among all the 980 Ti's tested.

2. Hybrid cooling does nothing to improve performance but it does add noise. The 980 Ti throttles at 85C, the EVGA 980 Ti OC's tops out at 77C, so no, adding a CLC water block will not improve performance.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/EVGA/GTX_980_Ti_SC_Plus/34.html

Gigabyte's cooler manages 71C
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_980_Ti_G1_Gaming/34.html

If anything limits your OC, it is likely to be the max voltage allowed by the BIOS or VRM temps which the hybrid cooling doesn't water cool.

3. With today's GFX cards, nVidia's anyway, being so efficient, there is little attraction for water cooling from a performance perspective. On the other hand, there are significant advantages to be gained from a noise reduction standpoint. CLCs, due to their small pumps and extreme rpm fans tend to be louder than most non-reference air coolers.

4. With a custom loop everything will run cooler. If that seems daunting, you might want to look at the Swiftech H240-X. It arrives as an AIO but without all the weaknesses of CLCs.

-You can add more components (blocks , radiators, whatever)
-Pump pushes 10 times more water than a CLC
-All copper components for better heat transfer
-No mixed metals https://martinsliquidlab.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/corrosion-explored/
-Reservoir

You can then add whatever you want, GFX card water blocks, MoBo water blocks, extra radiators. As is, the H240-X will provide adequate cooling for your CPU and one 980 Ti. All you need is a water block for the GFX card, two tube fittings, some extra tube and coolant. For two, 980 Ti's I'd add a 2nd radiator....A 420 rad on top and the H-240-X in front as shown at 1:25 here would keep water temps around 33C, and GPU temps around 40C. Advantage here again not being increased performance but low noise. You should be able to keep fan rpms about
600 - 850 at which point with your eyes closed, you won't be able to tell the system is running.
 
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I'm just gonna reply to OP's original question...

I've recently got ARCTIC Accelero Xtreme III for my 980 Ti. It was really difficult to install but worth it - now my card doesn't go over 56C in Furmark, and 50C in In Heaven and Valley. I've also oc'd it by 210MHz on Core and Memory Clocks (along with +87MV Core Voltage and 110% Power Limit).

I contacted the ARCTIC support prior to the purchase to see if the Xtreme IV would fit my card (as it's got the backplate cooler and a GPU holder) but they confirmed it wouldn't because my card doesn't strictly adhere to the reference design so I got the Xtreme III instead.

I know this is an old thread but since others are still talking about it, I just thought I'd input my experience as well in case it helps.
 
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