FormatC :
Please take a look at page Two. You find the different FPS, 100 MHz wise (Efficiency) mg]
I interpreted his message as asking for a comparison of the results with the stock card versus (w/ air cooler) versus the same card with water block ... perhaps because I was also looking for the same thing (w/o having to flip back and forth between the two articles.
Achaios :
Don't think it is worth it to spend $699 and an additional $399 for a Custom Water Loop, not to say anything about work required to set this up properly (abt 2 days), on a card that will be completely outclassed in every possible way by the next NVIDIA architecture to come around Dec 2017.
That's not really a fair comparison.
1. One analogy I find appropriate is when folks say , well it's not worth it to spend $120 instead of $100, a 20% increase in cost, for faster RAM when average gains in gaming fps are 2 -3 % (actual 0% say for Metro - 11% for F1). However, that's a false equivalency because the entire system is going faster, not just the RAM, so the increase in cost on a $1,500 system for boosting the RAM speed is just 1.33%
2. That water block is not just bringing a performance increase, it's drastically reducing noise, temperatures and improving aesthetics. It's also bringing home more stable CPU OCs.
3. The loop was already there. If desired, you can get a prefilled block or even a card with prefilled water block installed, if time is a concern reducing your additional install time to seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq4iNbCD844
4. Two days ? Unless you are doing a build w/ custom bends and rigid acrylic tubing, it won't take two days. Adding a water block to a Swiftech AIO for example:
Attach block = 20 minutes.
Install 2nd radiator = 10 minutes
Install (4) G-1/4 compression fittings = 5 minutes
Cut and install tubing = 15 minutes
Drain, mix and add coolant = 20 minutes
Then you are going to let it run for an hour, come back and bleed it a bit ... rinse and repeat at 4 hours and 24 hours but if it tales more than 90 - 120 minutes total of actual time investment, that would be unusual.
Installing the Swiftech at the same time would add 20 minutes tops.
5. Yes the next architecture will top it ... but so will the next one so that kinda kills the relevance. Typically, folks keep GFX cards anywhere from 2 - 6 years except for the minority of "must have latest new thing" folks. You already built the box, you already bought the Ti, so the real additional cost is the $125 block, $80 2nd radiator (if 1st one wasn't big enough, the (4) fittings ($50 for fancy smancy ones) , coolant ($12) and tubing ($8).
6. Personally, with no performance increase, I'd have no issue forking over $300 for the silence alone.
But ultimately, purchase decisions are a cost / benefit analysis where the value gained from the purchase is weighed against the value spent. As each individual's goal's are different, and each person's disposable income / financial obligations are different, a sound decision for one is a ridiculous decision for another. As far as water cooling a GFX card goes, the only decision I would argue against is doing it on a FE card as the value gained from the investment is going to be somewhat gimped by the limitations of the reference PCB itself.
Of course, Boost 3 is already nerfing performance on the 10xx series, and as of yet no one has as yet cracked the BIOS and developed a BIOS Editor which might allow one to push back these limits. So it remains to be seen just how much this will be a factor in WC can take things. In the last two generations, nVidia has nerfed what AIB partners can accomplish, (both legally and physically) and rendered the extreme cards (Lightning, Matrix, Classified) somewhat irrelevant given their substantial additional cost. But last generation, the "what we could do part" increased a bit w/ each jump towards the top tier. We'll have to wait till the AIB cards are tested to see what's going to be possible It's great to see just what could be accomplished with the new TI, but still, I wouldn't invest $250 or more in adding GFX water cooling w/o spending the extra $20 on an AIB card.