Cooling VRMs on EVGA 980 Ti

[Schwartzinator]

Temps have gotten a little toasty inside my H440 with two GTX 980 Ti and a 750 Ti, so I've begun work on dropping temps. Step one, was to swap out the stock fans on the case and Kraken X61 with Noctuas NF series industrial PPC 3000 RPM fans. While this dropped my CPU load temps by a fair amount (81c down to 69-73c at 100% load in stress tests; I also managed to slightly lower voltages from the auto overclock settings), I am still left with a pair of cards running at 79c under load (with priority given to temps at 79c vs power in afterburner) and 40-45c at idle which causes my CPU to also idle right around 45c with the Kraken X61 pulling in that hot exhaust.

Step two is to try and fix the GPU temps and their associated fan noise under load. Let me tell you, the fan at 70% is loud! Don't even get me started when it's going full speed; though it does drop temps from 79 down to around 72c and 75c on cards 1 and 2. This has brought me to the conclusion that the ACX cooler just doesn't cut it when run in SLI, and as such, I'm taking my ACX coolers off my cards (980 Ti FTW) and installing the blocks from the hybrid kit, but won't have a fan from the reference cooler directing air towards the VRMs due to compatibility issues with my cards semi-custom design. I've looked at modding in the reference cooler, but there appears to be a number of issues, so I've moved towards just installing the water block.

My assumption, is that without the 80c heat from the aluminum ACX heatsink hovering over the cooling-plate (along with the downdraft of hot-air exhuast); coupled with cooler air coming off the front mounted Noctua NF-F12s, there should be enough airflow to keep the the VRM temps at least in check. Does anyone know what their limit is before permanent damage occurs? I've looked at aluminum/copper heatsinks, as well as thermalpads to place over the cooling plate, but hear that they have a tendency to fall off due to the adhesive bond weakening under high temps coupled with gravitational pull. Any suggestions, would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Lutfij]

In these sort of situations where cramped enclosures or at least cards placed too close to each other are brought up I'd suggest going proper watercooling instead of going with AIO + bracket add on suggestions but if we were to exercise the latter instead of the former have you tried at looking towards the NZXT G10 bracket and pair it with a kraken?

The other suggestion would be to go for full cover waterblocks thus custom level watercooling. You're right about the thermal adhesive giving out under heat but there are cases where thermal adhesive made by Arctic cooling stuck on like glue from a hot glue gun! I've also read that adhesive's that have high bonding strength take some force to pry off which may or may not be good in the long run.

You could look into EK's and Swiftehc's expandable AIO solutions and add your full cover waterblocks to the loop...? Can you please pass on a budget as well as your full systems specs?

 

[Schwartzinator]

In these sort of situations where cramped enclosures or at least cards placed too close to each other are brought up I'd suggest going proper watercooling instead of going with AIO + bracket add on suggestions but if we were to exercise the latter instead of the former have you tried at looking towards the NZXT G10 bracket and pair it with a kraken?

The other suggestion would be to go for full cover waterblocks thus custom level watercooling. You're right about the thermal adhesive giving out under heat but there are cases where thermal adhesive made by Arctic cooling stuck on like glue from a hot glue gun! I've also read that adhesive's that have high bonding strength take some force to pry off which may or may not be good in the long run.

You could look into EK's and Swiftehc's expandable AIO solutions and add your full cover waterblocks to the loop...? Can you please pass on a budget as well as your full systems specs?

I have now been running this setup for about three months with just the cooling block from the hybrid kit and the cooling midplate that came with card. There's two reasons why I didn't go the full loop route. 1. There is no fullblock cover for the FTW model. 2. I will be upgragding to the Pascal 1080Ti/Titan and the Skylake-e 8-core CPU upon release. System specs are includded in the CPUz validator in my signature. As far as a budget goes, I honestly don't know. $500 seems pretty reasonable to me. Additionally, the G10 braket is not compatable with my current setup. Due to the way the X99 Deluxe splits its lanes with the 5820k. I would need an i7-5930k to use my cards in the PCIe 1 and 3 slot as it currently runs my second 980 Ti in 8x at 2.0 speeds. I then also wouldn't have space for my 750 Ti.