Water Cooling Solutions for GTX 970

[napster100]

Hi guys, I've recently brought the EVGA SC GTX 970 (dual fan not blower style cooling) and after getting micro stutter in game, I found that it runs rather hot, it can easily hit 80C+ in no time at all when underload, and I don't really like it being at that temp, I have to manually set the fan speed to keep it cooler (between 60-75C is my ideal temp range), idle temps range from 45-50C. So I did a little research and found that EVGA did the dirty on us with the cooling for this card, I think I read that it only has 2 heat pipes and theres no back plate. I also found that other owners with this problem had a multi-monitor setup, which I do, I have 2 monitors, it seems Nvidia Inspector helped them lower the temps but has done nothing for me.

Since water cooling my CPU brought the temps down significantly (I also previously had high temps with that too), I figured water cooling the GPU would be a good idea, though I see theres not too many solutions for this and wonder if you guys could help me?

If you'd like to know my build, it's the link in my signature, and my case cooling is 120mm fan on the front (air intake), 80mm fan on the top (air intake), 120mm fan on the back attached to the CPU radiator (air out), 120mm fan on the side (air out)... There is holes on the bottom for another 120mm fan, but the PSU is a bit too big to fit one there 🙁 (I don't know what their logic was with that).

Thanks guys

 

[Unolocogringo]

First I would try the side fan as an intake. Air blowing in. With all of your fans as exhaust you are not getting cool fresh air to the video card.

 

[napster100]

Okay thanks, I'll give that a go.

 

[napster100]

It seems to have helped a bit, but only lowering by about 5C.

 

[Gam3r01]

Commonly side panel fans actually disrupt airflow more than they help it.
You have a two dimensional convection layout, cool air in the front, hot air out the top back. Adding in a third dimension disrupts this.

What do you have your fan speeds set to/Have you done a custom curve.

 

[napster100]

Commonly side panel fans actually disrupt airflow more than they help it.
You have a two dimensional convection layout, cool air in the front, hot air out the top back. Adding in a third dimension disrupts this.

What do you have your fan speeds set to/Have you done a custom curve.

They're only 3 pin ones so I can't control the curve.

 

[Gam3r01]

On the card.

 

[napster100]

On the card.

Oh sorry thought you meant case fans. Heres a screenshot (thought it'd be easier than typing it).

 

[Gam3r01]

I would maybe make the curve a bit more aggressive if you wish to keep temps down alot.

 

[napster100]

At the moment, I've got it at a nice stable 65C at 62% speed which is a more desired temp, but I'm not on an extremely demanding game. I've found that enabling vsync has reduced temps in game, I think I'll keep it on from now onwards. I figured it might be that because my frame rate when playing the game was around 120FPS and had an average temp around 65C, but in the menu I was getting 260FPS with higher temps of 72C and sometimes a bit higher. Throwing on vsync has cooled this to a temp of 50C, so it's seeming beneficial there.