Question GPU Water Block Cooling Tips

[Gamefreaknet]

I am considering getting 3 things to upgrade my PC to prepare it for more overclocking:
Replacing my B760 (Gigabyte Gaming X AX) with a Z790 (preferable) or Z690 mobo to unlock full overclocking allowance (I have already tried Intel XTU which crashed my PC when I tried to force an overclock although I can Overclock my GPU with MSI Afterburner)
another 32GBs of RAM (DDR5 5600) (I know the exact kit I currently have so will just buy another to run in 4x16GB)
GPU Waterblock cooler (Not sure which yet)
Since my CPUs AIO (360mm) sits fairly close to where my GPU is I am not sure of the clearance that would be available for GPU waterblock cooling pipes so is it technically viable to go for right angle attachment pipes to "bypass" that clearance limit)

Current System:

Component		Selection	Price
CPU			Intel Core i7-13700K 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor	£376.99	Buy
CPU Cooler			Antec Symphony ARGB 72 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler	£101.98	Buy
Motherboard			Gigabyte B760 GAMING X AX ATX LGA1700 Motherboard	£175.91	Buy
Memory			Corsair Vengeance RGB 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-5600 CL36 Memory	£112.99	Buy
Storage			Kingston NV2 500 GB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive	£32.99	Buy
Storage			Kingston NV2 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive	£98.63	Buy
Storage			Kingston NV2 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive	£187.00	Buy
Video Card			MSI GAMING X TRIO GeForce RTX 4070 Ti 12 GB Video Card	£889.19	Buy
Case			Antec DP503 ATX Mid Tower Case	£101.98	Buy
Power Supply			Corsair RM1000e (2023) 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	£139.90	Buy
Monitor			AOC C27G2Z 27.0" 1920 x 1080 240 Hz Curved Monitor	No PricesAvailable	Buy
Total:	£2217.56

There is no temp issue as at most my system goes to: (casual use):
CPU: 35c - 45c
GPU: 40c - 50c
Rarely much difference in temps when Gaming (about 10c difference)
Whilst I don't "need" the GPU block considering how a CPU being lower temps allows it to turbo more thanks to thermal headroom I am near certain similar applies to GPU and considering how overclocks will likely generate more "heat" it will allow my to get more performance out of the card. (Also is just visually nice I guess :> )

 

[Eximo]

Water cooling gets you more consistent frequency, and maybe one or two boost bins higher than air cooling. The actual limits for 40 series cards are the GPU voltage, which they don't let you do much to, and the power limits, which is again limited. Unless you plan to BIOS hack or apply your own voltage mods (physical hardware), you aren't going to get much more overclock then you likely already have. Generally not worth it to water cool 40 series cards, unless you need the space. They tend to have ridiculously overbuilt coolers already.

The mid-range cards especially so. Rather than spending $100-160 for a GPU block (and then you still need a radiator, pump, res) It makes more sense to just sell what you have and get something like a 4080 or 4090.

Same applies to an AIO type GPU cooler, they are expensive all things considered and the performance gain you would get from a 4080 is more than anything you can get out of a 4070Ti.

If you still want to do water cooling, I say go for broke and do a full custom loop. Once you have the parts they can be re-used for several years on multiple builds. I've been using the same fittings and tubing (new tubing runs, but from the same old spool) for like 8 years now. And the same CPU block for 3 different CPUs. I did swap the radiators and the pump/res/rad, but only because it was convenient and I didn't want to wait for my old one to fail on me.

Oh, I will need a new CPU block for my next build. Intel finally switched socket size, and now AMD has too, though still fairly compatible. But my CPU block predates AM4? I need to check on that. Yep, don't think it has a bracket for AM4, let alone AM5. Came out for 4th gen Intel.

 

[Gamefreaknet]

Water cooling gets you more consistent frequency, and maybe one or two boost bins higher than air cooling. The actual limits for 40 series cards are the GPU voltage, which they don't let you do much to, and the power limits, which is again limited. Unless you plan to BIOS hack or apply your own voltage mods (physical hardware), you aren't going to get much more overclock then you likely already have. Generally not worth it to water cool 40 series cards, unless you need the space. They tend to have ridiculously overbuilt coolers already.

The mid-range cards especially so. Rather than spending $100-160 for a GPU block (and then you still need a radiator, pump, res) It makes more sense to just sell what you have and get something like a 4080 or 4090.

Same applies to an AIO type GPU cooler, they are expensive all things considered and the performance gain you would get from a 4080 is more than anything you can get out of a 4070Ti.

If you still want to do water cooling, I say go for broke and do a full custom loop. Once you have the parts they can be re-used for several years on multiple builds. I've been using the same fittings and tubing (new tubing runs, but from the same old spool) for like 8 years now. And the same CPU block for 3 different CPUs. I did swap the radiators and the pump/res/rad, but only because it was convenient and I didn't want to wait for my old one to fail on me.

Oh, I will need a new CPU block for my next build. Intel finally switched socket size, and now AMD has too, though still fairly compatible. But my CPU block predates AM4? I need to check on that. Yep, don't think it has a bracket for AM4, let alone AM5. Came out for 4th gen Intel.

(Im probably missing something here) but using MSI afterburner I can overclock to allow higher core and memory clocks. My PSU has a fair bit of headroom to allow for those overclocks unless its a limit on the actual PSU "power pins" to the GPU?

 

[Eximo]

Core and memory clocks yes, but only to the point of instability. But to get even higher core and memory clocks you would need to be able to increase the power and voltage. Nvidia has forced all their partners to limit the voltages and power. So you might be able to slide power and voltage all the way over and set your clocks as high as they will go.

If your temperatures are still good, you have basically reached max out the box performance.

More or less for every 10 degrees C decrease in temperature you can gain 1-2 boost bins. Not sure on 40 series, but for older Nvidia cards this was in jumps of 13Mhz. I think it might be 10 based on some of the overclocks I have seen. Typical GPU temperature under a sustained load is between 50 and 60C, unless you go crazy on the radiators, so you can see something like 5-7 boost bins, or about 50-100Mhz over what air cooling can do. This might equate to a few FPS here and there.

The real gain is consistency. Since the GPU never gets warm and you could get it stable at say, 2850Mhz, then it will be 2850Mhz all the time and no bouncing around from 2750-2850.

Extreme overclocking can reach about 3000Mhz on 40 series cards. That means sub-ambient or nearly there temperatures and tricking a card into accepting 600W or so (the limit of the 12-pin power cable, and a sensible stopping point for 40 series anyway, more power doesn't get you more speed after a certain point)