Discussion Why isn't Liquid Cooling used more for Graphics Cards?

[Gamefreaknet]

Based off of 3 main concepts:
1: Liquid Cooling does tend to be generally better at cooling than air for CPUs which get hot like GPUs (generally also minus the Radiator Leaks)
2: A lot of people in multiple forums report high GPU temps
3: We seem to slowly be abandoning the Single/Dual Fan Design for GPUs hinting that Single and Dual fan designs are simply not enough to cool our GPUs anymore
However we know (in a very generalised sense) that if we ignore the prices Liquid Cooling is generally better at keeping temps down on our CPUs and we even have had some GPUs with liquid cooling designs. Of course these GPUs would need to be seriously high quality as a radiator leak could end up killing the card or at least damaging it a bit and if we factor in the pricing cost it would cost more in general but considering that in the higher spec cards of the Nvidia 30 series and 40 series some PSUs had their connectors melted and all those going to forums about hot GPUs with the 50 series set to be released soon (I have no clue of the date however there has been a lot of talk about it) we can assume that the temps on those cards will be higher maybe not by a lot but considering that from the 30 series to the 40 series the dual and single fan designs were not used anymore (likely due to insufficient cooling potential/capability) and the whole of the 40 series is triple fan (minus the few liquid cooled models) wouldn't it be safer to keep temps down with a cooling method we know (in general) is better than air cooling.
(Once again, yes, I do know it would cost the GPU manufacturers to design liquid cooling blocks/designs for their GPUs)

 

[geofelt]

1. Cost vs. return. AIO cooling will cost more for the pump and other components.
Previous aio gpu offerings have apparently not sold well.

2. Graphics cards do run hot, but they are designed to do so. 80c. is not out of line.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Stuff in spoilers mostly to compartmentalize my thoughts

Spoiler: On liquid cooling being "better"

The only reason why liquid cooling performs better is the heat exchanging part can be mounted in such a way that allows for more surface area and fans to go over it. In addition, said mounting also leads it to a better airflow profile.

If the GPU heat sink were allowed to run perpendicular to the card, rather than parallel to it, then I would argue that for the same amount of heat sink "material", it'd perform a lot better. As a measure of evidence to this, DIY Perks' Cloud Unit PC uses what looks like an upgraded version of a Hyper 212 and this setup allowed him to get away with using case fans that ran at a really low RPM while maintaining pretty good temperatures.

Spoiler: On people reporting high temps

What are "high temps"? If we're talking about 85C+, we have to understand what they're doing. If we're going with a room temperature of something like 78-80F (25-26C) with their fans blaring, then to me this is more indicative of a problem with the cooling setup overall than the card itself. For instance, they may have a case that has poor airflow due to something like a glass panel being in front of the case fans

There are also several options that people can take to reduce the temperature of the card without resorting to messing with its heat sink or the cooling system of the computer itself.

• Power limit the cards. Even dropping the power limit from 100% to around 85% can lower the temperature significantly.
  • Before you go "but wouldn't that mean I'd lose all that performance?", not really. There's a point in every part's frequency curve where it needs a significant amount of power just to budge even 50MHz.
  • I've started doing this when I noticed in one of the games I played, the performance wouldn't go up, but the card would happily chew through the extra power. If I dropped the power limit to 80%, I'd lose almost no performance, and while the temperature didn't necessarily drop, it did mean the fans didn't have to spin as fast
• For a little more advanced tweaking, there's undervolting the video card.
• Set an FPS limit. Sure, maybe being able to get 1000+ FPS in Doom Eternal or CS:GO with the limiter removed looks nice, but it does zero towards your skill level. The only reason why top level eSports players will want all that FPS is simply to remove the equipment from the equation as much as possible. It'd be like saying you can buy $1000 Nike shoes and suddenly you can run as good as Usain Bolt.

Spoiler: On cards requiring more slots

The only concern I have here is the potential for stressing the PCIe slot, but a lot of motherboard manufacturers have been reinforcing the primary x16 slot and some case manufacturers have been designing cases with support brackets in mind. Even then, you can buy a support thing on Amazon for cheap.

The other issue is this limits small form factor builds. And while it might be nice to stuff top-tier parts like a Ryzen 9 with an RTX 4090 in a small box, I honestly think these people want their cake and eat it too. Compromises have to be made when making a small form factor build unless you're willing to really mod your hardware.

... so what's my overall point here? A lot of people build in ATX cases and don't install anything in the expansion slots other than a video card. So there's still a lot of room to breath. Besides that, this is still only a concern if you're going for a flag ship or halo card. The only reason why my RTX 4070 Ti is 3-slot is because the video card manufacturer was using the same design for the higher end cards and it's cheaper overall to minimize how many different designs there are. They eventually released a 2-slot version, but this was likely because they're going to use the same heat sink for the lower tier cards.

But the benefit of having a 3-slot card is the thing runs stupid cool. It almost never goes above 65C with all the fans spinning at around 40-45%, where ~60% is when it starts to get really audible.

Spoiler: On AIO liquid cooling for video cards in general

And then we come to the other issue with AIO liquid cooling: how do you design it in such a way that isn't a pain in the butt to install? The last time I had an AIO cooler, it was kind of annoying to work with.

Then there's the issue with size. The video cards I've seen that came with an AIO cooler pre-installed basically only cooled the GPU and used a 120mm radiator, with the intention of being installed in the exhaust fan mount. If you wanted to cool the whole video card, you'd have to have at 360mm radiator. I can only imagine how awkward the tubing would be to make sure there's enough for full ATX cases while installing the card in a mid ATX or micro ATX case. And then if you wanted an AIO for your CPU, well...

And lastly, you wouldn't be able to use a video card with an AIO cooler in mini ITX builds, because there's no where to mount the radiator in a lot of designs.

 

[Karadjgne]

1. Better is subjective. Cooling is about 2 factors, capacity and efficiency. Those are not synonymous. A Noctua NH-D15 has double the capacity of the NH-U12, but the U12 is actually more efficient, gets better results on the smaller cpus. It looses out when capacity is reached by bigger cpus. Same applies to liquid cooling. A Corsair H60i gets almost identical results to the CoolerMaster Hyper212 EVO, same curve, same efficiency, same capacity.

2. Gpus tend to have double to triple the power consumption and possible heat output to a cpu, but the coolers on a gpu are barely (if at all) larger than what's on the cpu.

3. Gpus are size constrained in width. That prevents turning a 140mm or larger fan sideways, so with cooler power requirements to maintain efficiency, 2x or 3x fans smaller 66mm- 90mm- 92mm fans are necessary to get the most amount of air flow through the radiator in the largest possible area, raising efficiency.

4. People are sheep. A person may be smart or knowledgeable, but people are sheep. When one bleets, the whole herd bleets and has no idea why. Everything made by man has a failure rate. For AIO's, that's around 0.1%. You'd think that's tiny, it isn't. If Corsair sold 1 million AIOs last year, thats 1000 failures. 90% of those are user errors, they bent the tubing, lifted the rad by the pump, tweaked the connectors, dropped the pump on the rad etc. Not actual factory issues. That leaves 100 actual doa pumps or leaks, 90% of which are minor or caused by shipping etc and require RMA. That leaves 10 ppl that have serious leaks, tubes split, catastrophic failures. 10 out of 1M. And 1 of those ppl will post a video with a rant about how his AIO destroyed his pc, it's junk, stay away from them, stick to air. That video goes viral. 10 Million sheep now know for a fact that liquid cooling is dangerous, it'll destroy their pc.

That's exactly why liquid cooling isn't used more often, the sheep know better than to buy them, (there is video proof), so they don't sell as well as air, regardless of any benefits. AIB's will sell far more air units at a lower cost and higher profit bottom line, than liquid cooled units could hope to match or surpass. Even if profit per card was higher on a liquid cooled gpu, the sheer volume of air sales in comparison gets a far better overall profit.

 

[USAFRet]

Liquid Cooling does tend to be generally better at cooling than air for CPUs

Only because the liquid cooler can have a much larger radiator surface.
A 120mm liquid cooler is no better than a good air cooler.

Liquid cooling simply moves the heat exchange to a different, larger, location. This 'movement' is via the liquid.

 

[iTRiP]

I'd say because most peeps don't have a case to mount the radiator, Well that's my case wide open for you or else I' would have easily bought myself that ASUS RX 6900 XT liquid cooled, back in the day.

I got triple fans on my GPU at the moment, for some reason they won't spin up past 50%, but hey that isn't stopping me from having a blast playing HD native any game I got. (besides the games where I got to turn on fidelity FX).



Looking for something better now. All the while I'm still gaming deliciously on my current rig.

 

[thestryker]

I imagine if there was an easy way to produce AIOs for GPUs that we would see more of them than we do now. Der8auer had a video from Computex 2023 which could potentially make just this happen:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0HAG6PunrU


Mostly from a consumer standpoint I think there are two primary issues: is the extra cost really worth it? (you're unlikely to get better performance) and do you have a place to mount the radiator?

One thing I think a lot of people don't think about with CPU AIOs is that by moving where the heat is and moving the cooler out of the way you end up with better airflow through the case. I had GPU temps go down by about 5C when I switched to an AIO on my CPU. My GPU is currently an AIO, but that's because when I bought it EVGA was selling them for the same price as the air cooled ones and I wanted to try it out.

 

[iTRiP]

I imagine if there was an easy way to produce AIOs for GPUs that we would see more of them than we do now. Der8auer had a video from Computex 2023 which could potentially make just this happen:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0HAG6PunrU


Mostly from a consumer standpoint I think there are two primary issues: is the extra cost really worth it? (you're unlikely to get better performance) and do you have a place to mount the radiator?

One thing I think a lot of people don't think about with CPU AIOs is that by moving where the heat is and moving the cooler out of the way you end up with better airflow through the case. I had GPU temps go down by about 5C when I switched to an AIO on my CPU. My GPU is currently an AIO, but that's because when I bought it EVGA was selling them for the same price as the air cooled ones and I wanted to try it out.

Intrusting setup an i7 6700K + 3080 RTX.


I'd really liked to get myself hat ASUS liquid cooled gpu, but with all these drives I cant easily switch cases to accommodate for such a gpu. I like the drive space you see.

 

[thestryker]

Intrusting setup an i7 6700K + 3080 RTX.

If you're talking about mine it's a 6900K.

I'd really liked to get myself hat ASUS liquid cooled gpu, but with all these drives I cant easily switch cases to accommodate for such a gpu. I like the drive space you see.

Depends on what sort of drives you're using and how many of them. Cases with good storage are hard to find (unless they're giant), but some of the Lian-li cases can manage. I wouldn't want to try to use HDDs in my 5000D at all that's for sure.

 

[DSzymborski]

It's really a simple story: there just isn't the demand for it. Because of how poorly the cooler cost would scales it would only make sense on the high-end GPUs; you can probably count on one hand the number of people itching to spend $200 extra to get a water cooled RX 6600. And once you're dropping a ton of money on a high-end GPU, the last thing you want to do is create another point of failure.

If the market for these was out there, you'd see the companies cranking these out like they were oxy, not slashing the prices to near parity with air-cooled GPUs late in generations.

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

That's exactly why liquid cooling isn't used more often, the sheep know better than to buy them, (there is video proof), so they don't sell as well as air, regardless of any benefits.

Nothing against AIOs personally... I ran my most recent CPUs (4790k, 7700k, 10900k) all with AIOs and never had a failure or a leak.

My GPUs during the same timeframe were air cooled... except the 1080 Ti purchased in 2017. It was a Founders card that sounded like a vacuum cleaner when the fans ramped up... and that got old fast. I purchased the EVGA hybrid kit and it quickly became a silent card. Temps did improve... but the main reason for the purchase was the noise.

Fast forward to 2023... my first CPU air cooler in forever... the Noctua NH-D15. I freakin' love it for my 7950x3D. Main reason behind the purchase was it's a not-Intel processor and an AIO isn't needed which is true. It's super quiet... even at max fan rpm I don't hear it at all. Temps well within normal range.

Same for the 4090... the 3 fans keep it in the 50-70C range... the low end being everyday use... the high end being benchmark stress tests.

Either way... don't need an AIO and after experiencing the Noctua I'll probably never buy one again. I've got the recently released Ryzen offset brackets from Noctua that I'll be installing tomorrow that they claim will save me a couple C due to the design of the x3D processors. Installing not because it's needed but because it was free.

Once you go air you never go back? 🤣 🤣

 

[Avro Arrow]

Liquid cooling isn't used more often for the simplest of reasons, it's not required, it's risky to use and it would drive the cost of the card up to the point that nobody would buy it.

Liquid cooling is the most marketing-BS-driven concept in PC parts that I've ever seen. Gamers go out and spend hundreds on AIOs that make literally no difference when they'd be better off just getting a faster CPU with an air cooler.

I have a (much younger) co-worker who has a 360mm AIO for a Ryzen 5 2600X. He says that he likes how it looks (and I get that, they do look nice) but the cost of these things can be exorbitant. IIRC, he has a Cooler Master Liquid ML360. Let's let that sink in shall we? He has a $175+USD 360mm AIO for a 6-core Zen+ CPU. If he didn't make such a stupid decision and buy that thing, he'd have an R7-5800X3D or, at least, an R7-5700X today. That's not even the most stupidly expensive one as the NZXT Kraken is far worse.

I tried out an AIO once years ago (a Zalman model by Asetek) and it made less than 5°C difference on my FX-8350 compared to the AM2+ box cooler that I'd been using. I also tried a CoolerMaster Hyper 212 and it made even less difference than that.

Right now, I use a Wraith Prism box cooler on my R7-5800X3D that I got for free. It didn't come with any CPU that I bought, but my father got one with his R9-3900X and he absolutely hates RGB. So, I offered him my unused non-RBG Wraith Spire that came with my R5-3600X in exchange for it (because I was using the RGB Wraith Spire that came with my R7-1700) and he took the offer immediately.

I never get thermal throttling with an air cooler that cost me $0 and my reference RX 6800 XT works fine as well just as it is. Liquid cooling might make a difference in a workstation that does CPU-heavy tasks on a near-constant basis or for competitive overclockers but for gaming, they are an even bigger waste of money than RGB-lit RAM.

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

Liquid cooling isn't used more often for the simplest of reasons, it's not required, it's risky to use and it would drive the cost of the card up to the point that nobody would buy it.

Liquid cooling is the most marketing-BS-driven concept in PC parts that I've ever seen. Gamers go out and spend hundreds on AIOs that make literally no difference when they'd be better off just getting a faster CPU with an air cooler.

Yep... 🤣 🤣

As said in my previous post I don't think I'll ever go back to an AIO... be it CPU or GPU.

No point in paying twice as much and having more points of failure in the build for something that isn't necessary.

 

[hotaru.hino]

The more I think about it, the more liquid cooling only makes sense in volume limited spaces. But shoebox sized PCs are also the worst computers to build a liquid cooling system into. Not to mention most of them leave the side where the video card sucks in air and exhaust air out vented anyway so there's little to no airflow obstruction.

 

[Anon#1234]

1. Cost vs. return. AIO cooling will cost more for the pump and other components.
Previous aio gpu offerings have apparently not sold well.

2. Graphics cards do run hot, but they are designed to do so. 80c. is not out of line.

This, a trustable AIO brand like corsair or NZXT charge a ton for their AIO's and you still have pump noise, might as well buy a air cooler. As for water cooling a GPU, it's doable but pretty difficult and not worth the return.

 

[Anon#1234]

Yep... 🤣 🤣

As said in my previous post I don't think I'll ever go back to an AIO... be it CPU or GPU.

No point in paying twice as much and having more points of failure in the build for something that isn't necessary.

Yeah, I was close to blowing 200$ on a corsair AIO and then realized how much better a system I could have if I spent that elsewhere.

 

[Karadjgne]

The more I think about it, the more liquid cooling only makes sense in volume limited spaces. But shoebox sized PCs are also the worst computers to build a liquid cooling system into. Not to mention most of them leave the side where the video card sucks in air and exhaust air out vented anyway so there's little to no airflow obstruction.

Ehem. I happen to have a shoebox thank you. (and Yes, that's a size 10 tennis shoe, relatively small box, not a high top or trainer.)

What most don't think about is that with liquid cooling in mITX, airflow is almost irrelevant, all that's required is Air. My 2x side rad fans are intake, blows directly on the motherboard that's only 1½" away. The bottom rad fans are also intake and blow on the gpu block. With the sheer amount of intake pressure vs tiny volume vs every panel perforated, air doesn't need moving very far to exit the case. I've got 4x 120mm intakes filling (empty case is 12.6L) a tiny amount of space left, vs the standard ATX mid which is @ 40-50L.

I literally do not need airflow, I can feel fan pressure on every panel.

Worst is subjective. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of building in SFF mITX, after 40 years of everything from desktops to full towers, I was really bored with such simple plug and play in 30 minutes designs.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Worst is subjective. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of building in SFF mITX, after 40 years of everything from desktops to full towers, I was really bored with such simple plug and play in 30 minutes designs.

You should post pictures of the inside of the case

However to clarify things, my thinking is more like getting a standard AIO which has to have enough tube length to work in a full ATX case and working in something like a Fractal Node 202 or a Silverstone FTZ/RVZ case, i.e., a <15L case. Anything custom is a given.

 

[Karadjgne]

When I say there are literally a dozen places where clearance is measured in less than 3mm, that's no joke. It took 3 months to hunt down specific connectors at the gpu, I even called several companies and had them connect me to the warehouse/parts and had the guy there measuring fittings. It's built with quick disconnects so I can actually fully remove the side rad from the system and still power up on the bottom rad alone.

Oh, and thats the Platinum version of the SF-600, not the Gold, so the entire pc is whisper quiet, even under stress.