Video Card and Cooling inputs?

[CaptainHaplo]

Ok - I am considering looking at another video card. I have used both Nvidia and ATI cards, though my last 3 cards have been ATI based. Therein lies the problem - all 3 have exhibited the same problem after a while - heatsink fan failure. Right now my 1650 pro is locking up - and I have already replaced the fan on it once. Did the same think with my last card - ended up replacing the cooling fan on that one as well. I know its not an issue of dust mainly because I keep my box clean, but also because none of the other fans in the box have had a problem.

At this point I am either going to go with a liquid cooling system, or swapping to an Nvidia card (I never had problems with them staying cool). If I go with an Nvidia card, whats the best bang for the buck in the 100-200 $ price range? Or should I go liquid cooling now (and thus making my 1650 last awhile longer) and then move that to a future rig when I build my next box?

If I go water cooling (which is where I am really leaning), the only thing I have seen fairly reasonably priced is a ThermalTake system. Anyone have a liquid cooled rig? Inputs welcome here. I figure this would be the way to go since, long term, I can move it to whatever hw I go to in the future provided I clean the copper sinks good and get a good match on the next cpu/gpu/bridge chip when I move. Any issues here that I should know about?
Thanks in advance!

[Kloef]

8800GT 1GB is an incredible bargain,if your pc can support it..

[CaptainHaplo]

Should I look into the 9600 series of Nvidia - or stick with the 8800? How about the 9800 - or on the ATI side - a HD series. I am really tempted to go with watercooling regardless of another card or not....

[Brenjen]

I've been using a water cooled eVGA 7950 GX2 nvidia card for a couple years now (might be a year & a half) & that thing has shredded every game I've thrown at it including a WW-2 combat MMORG called Aces High. It's over clocked as far as it will go & has been the entire time I've owned it using Riva tuner. It's in a loop with my FX-60 dual core CPU (also over clocked to 3 GHZ) w/ an internally mounted radiator as well & my house gets 90F, sometimes over that & I've never had a single cooling issue.:up:

EDIT: I'd recommend Danger Den for water cooling over thermaltake, buy your hose & water blocks from them & use a junkyard heater core from a car as the radiator; once you get it all hooked up use a 120mm fan to cool the radiator & use distilled water with a mix of water wetter in it. My temps as I edit this are 36C on one CPU core & 37C on the other & my GPU cores are both 44C

[StandingCow]

I think water cooling might be overkill, and you can easily achieve cool temps without it, as long as you arent doing crazy overclocking.. or do you just want to give it a shot because you have never done it?

You can also buy aftermarket heatsinks/fans for your graphics cards, so you don't need to replace the entire card if the fan fails.

As far as graphics cards go, the HD4850 and 4870s are a great price/performance option.

[Systemlord]

Water cooling isn't the answer, a better airflowing computer case is. The second most costly component during my new computer build last June 07 was the computer case, $330 dollars for a computer case does seem like alot. When you get the same temperatures inside a case as you do outside the case with a bunch of fans, thats awesome! I'm running an 8800GTX and these are supposed to run HOT, it idles at 52C and never go's above 68C max load. What case do you own? Mid size PC case are not enough for todays gaming systems in my opinion!

[Seminole]

I was thinking about water cooling for my new rig. After I checked a lot of sources I was told that with water cooling one could only expect around a 5 degree difference. Not that much.

So, I went with fan cooling and so far so good. Nvida cards.

[Brenjen]

Water cooling isn't the answer, a better airflowing computer case is. The second most costly component during my new computer build last June 07 was the computer case, $330 dollars for a computer case does seem like alot. When you get the same temperatures inside a case as you do outside the case with a bunch of fans, thats awesome! I'm running an 8800GTX and these are supposed to run HOT, it idles at 52C and never go's above 68C max load. What case do you own? Mid size PC case are not enough for todays gaming systems in my opinion!
To each his own. I wouldn't trade my water cooling for a $330 case....especially with a bunch of fans:down:

Your card runs Idle where mine runs max load heavily overclocked with four OC'd cores pouring heat into the loop. As far as what cools more efficiently; it's water cooling over fans all day long. As far as cost per centigrade of cooling, it's far cheaper to go with noisy fans usually unless you hodge podge a water cooling system together. You can get deals on the water blocks if you search around & a junkyard heater core will run somewhere in the area of $5 so really; it's possible to get water cooling on BOTH a CPU & a GPU for under $330;) As the saying goes; You gotta' shop around.

EDIT: But I will agree with standing cow; unless you're over clocking, water cooling really isn't neccesary.

[Kloef]

A junkyard heater core?

In a pc system,well talking about safety and leaving your pc on during the day....:down:

Watercooling is nice for overclockers and for looks and a quiet system,but buy a good pc case,add some quiet coolers and you have an effective way of cooling your pc,all that hassle for 5 degrees,i think you notice more then the pc does..

I never liked the idea of having water run around my componenents,condensation,erodation etc...

But thats just my 2 cents.....:p i would buy the 8800GT,alot of my clanmembers have one(or two)and i allways hear great things about them..and you can allways jump to watercooling when you feel like

[Quillan]

The fan on my ti4200 failed; I replaced that card with a 9800 Pro.
The fan on my 9800 Pro failed; I put an aftermarket cooler on that card.
The fan on the aftermarket cooler started going out, but by that time I upgraded to a 6800 Ultra (it was actually a 6800 GS, but was factory overclocked and I was able to unlock the extra 4 pipelines, which made it identical in shaders and speed to a 6800 Ultra).

The 6800 GS I bought was from eVGA, and that fan never had a hiccup. When I built the new computer, I went with an 8800GT from eVGA, also factory overclocked. I'd say I haven't had a problem with it either, but it's only 4 months old right now. :)

[Brenjen]

A junkyard heater core?

In a pc system,well talking about safety and leaving your pc on during the day....:down:

Watercooling is nice for overclockers and for looks and a quiet system,but buy a good pc case,add some quiet coolers and you have an effective way of cooling your pc,all that hassle for 5 degrees,i think you notice more then the pc does..

I never liked the idea of having water run around my componenents,condensation,erodation etc...

But thats just my 2 cents.....:p i would buy the 8800GT,alot of my clanmembers have one(or two)and i allways hear great things about them..and you can allways jump to watercooling when you feel like
Well you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

Yes; a junkyard heater core. A heater core is a tiny radiator, no more - no less. But a heck of a lot cheaper & thousands of water cooling users around the globe are running them as we speak. If you're twitchy or lack the ability to pressure test it with a water hose then go to an auto parts store & buy a NEW one....still cheaper than a purpose built one for a P/C.

The reason you use distilled water is because it doesn't conduct electricity like regular water will & it's not nearly as corrosive - the water wetter I suggested is to negate galvanic corrosion.

Five degrees of cooling is just an arbitrary number btw; I get much more than that.

As far as water cooling for looks? I think you have water cooling mixed up with all those fans, mine is totally 100% contained in the case! No fancy windows or spinning led's.

Edit: BTW my P/C's been water cooled as I mentioned for two years now without a hiccup, without a leak, without a change of coolant. Not sure why everyone is scared of what they don't understand but I'm living proof it's easy, it's reliable, it's the best performing cooling solution there is & it can be done affordably with a little leg work.

[Webster]

i have an 8800GT 512mb card with the arctic cooling acelero s-1 mounted to it as a totally passive cooling device (no fan) and it stays no more than warm. its also a slim design for sli set ups

i have a q6600 quad core processor and use a coolermaster centurian 5 case

its quiet and everything runs cool.


as for the question, why do the fans keep crapping out?

well they are cheap light weight and overworked its just the size is so small they can only do so much to beef them up so if they push too much air for the size motor it goes bad sooner, its just the nature of size vs weight vs airflow.

try this mod if you have the room:

remove the video card to your desk.

remove the cover plate over your fan and heatsink but do not seperate the heatsink from your video card. (be carefull the screws can be very small)

now install a case fan (usually 60mm or 70mm size) as big or slightly bigger than the hole size on the outside of the coverplate and mark where the screws go to drill screw holes. mount the fan so it will blow air into the card and mount with flush mounting screws, preferably the ones that came with the fan. reinstall the coverplate and test to be sure the stock fan blades still spin freely. for power you will plug the 4pin fan plug directly into your wiring harness. now replace the cover plate but first make sure the old fan is unplugged but you may need to tuck the plug and wire out of the way, even if it still works you do not want to have both running at the same time, it screws up the airflow.

the way this works is the case fan blows a lot more air into the card than that puny flat piece of crap stock fan and the stock fan you left in place will spin as the air goes by causing it to rotate backwards and direct airflow as needed accross the entire heatsink. i tried this without leaving the old fan in place but it cools better with it, it helps the air change direction from vertical to horizontal i think.

now if for some reason yours doesnt cool well try flipping the case fan over and reversing the airflow direction

[Kloef]

Well you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

Yes; a junkyard heater core. A heater core is a tiny radiator, no more - no less. But a heck of a lot cheaper & thousands of water cooling users around the globe are running them as we speak. If you're twitchy or lack the ability to pressure test it with a water hose then go to an auto parts store & buy a NEW one....still cheaper than a purpose built one for a P/C.

The reason you use distilled water is because it doesn't conduct electricity like regular water will & it's not nearly as corrosive - the water wetter I suggested is to negate galvanic corrosion.

Five degrees of cooling is just an arbitrary number btw; I get much more than that.

As far as water cooling for looks? I think you have water cooling mixed up with all those fans, mine is totally 100% contained in the case! No fancy windows or spinning led's.

Edit: BTW my P/C's been water cooled as I mentioned for two years now without a hiccup, without a leak, without a change of coolant. Not sure why everyone is scared of what they don't understand but I'm living proof it's easy, it's reliable, it's the best performing cooling solution there is & it can be done affordably with a little leg work.

I know what a heater core is,but i mean i wouldnt put some cheap,trow-away part in my pc,i'd rather spend some more and get the good stuff,hey but thats me...in the end most watercooled systems have a radiator thats cooled with........fans..:rotfl:

And yes there are people that buy it for looks,just as with cooling fans,just a matter of taste and what you like i guess..

Then i was going to write something about the cow and the scared of what they dont uderstand stuff,but i use to own a watercooled pc,so i leave it at that...keeping Webster's quote in mind

[Systemlord]

Water cooling isn't the answer, a better airflowing computer case is. The second most costly component during my new computer build last June 07 was the computer case, $330 dollars for a computer case does seem like alot. When you get the same temperatures inside a case as you do outside the case with a bunch of fans, thats awesome! I'm running an 8800GTX and these are supposed to run HOT, it idles at 52C and never go's above 68C max load. What case do you own? Mid size PC case are not enough for todays gaming systems in my opinion!
To each his own. I wouldn't trade my water cooling for a $330 case....especially with a bunch of fans:down:

Your card runs Idle where mine runs max load heavily overclocked with four OC'd cores pouring heat into the loop. As far as what cools more efficiently; it's water cooling over fans all day long. As far as cost per centigrade of cooling, it's far cheaper to go with noisy fans usually unless you hodge podge a water cooling system together. You can get deals on the water blocks if you search around & a junkyard heater core will run somewhere in the area of $5 so really; it's possible to get water cooling on BOTH a CPU & a GPU for under $330;) As the saying goes; You gotta' shop around.

EDIT: But I will agree with standing cow; unless you're over clocking, water cooling really isn't neccesary.

I'm sorry I forgot to mention my 8800GTX idles at 52C and loads at 68C with a GPU core clock of 663MHz, Shader at 1525MHz and memory at 2100MHz. Not bad for an older gen chip thats was known for massive heat, all four case fans are very quiet being Scythe S-Flex 1600rpm. My E6600 is at 3.6GHz using an Tuniq Tower 120, temps are cool for air cooling! :yep: A lot of my friends use the case I have using water cooling, whats your GPU and CPU running at?


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[Brenjen]

Well you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

Yes; a junkyard heater core. A heater core is a tiny radiator, no more - no less. But a heck of a lot cheaper & thousands of water cooling users around the globe are running them as we speak. If you're twitchy or lack the ability to pressure test it with a water hose then go to an auto parts store & buy a NEW one....still cheaper than a purpose built one for a P/C.

The reason you use distilled water is because it doesn't conduct electricity like regular water will & it's not nearly as corrosive - the water wetter I suggested is to negate galvanic corrosion.

Five degrees of cooling is just an arbitrary number btw; I get much more than that.

As far as water cooling for looks? I think you have water cooling mixed up with all those fans, mine is totally 100% contained in the case! No fancy windows or spinning led's.

Edit: BTW my P/C's been water cooled as I mentioned for two years now without a hiccup, without a leak, without a change of coolant. Not sure why everyone is scared of what they don't understand but I'm living proof it's easy, it's reliable, it's the best performing cooling solution there is & it can be done affordably with a little leg work.
I know what a heater core is,but i mean i wouldnt put some cheap,trow-away part in my pc,i'd rather spend some more and get the good stuff,hey but thats me...in the end most watercooled systems have a radiator thats cooled with........fans..:rotfl:

And yes there are people that buy it for looks,just as with cooling fans,just a matter of taste and what you like i guess..

Then i was going to write something about the cow and the scared of what they dont uderstand stuff,but i use to own a watercooled pc,so i leave it at that...keeping Webster's quote in mind
My point stands you aren't accurately describing watercooling or it's parts & implementation & are giving out information from a "scared of liquid in my P/C" viewpoint. Especially stuff like this..........fans..:rotfl: :roll:

Air cooled systems need more than the one or two fans needed by a watercooled system; which by the way can be set on low RPM by a fan controller where air cooled systems can't without suffering heat soak. If you were speaking from a neutral viewpoint you'd mention facts like the four or even more fans that water cooling negates etc. I've read plenty of fear mongering about water cooling & the truth is it can be affordable & can't be beaten by any air cooling option out there. You fail to give any logic for the fear you're imparting, heater core....not some "cheap throw-away part" but rather identical in form & function to the P/C radiators & at 1/15th the cost. Water inside a P/C, corrosion, cost etc. are all stock, off the shelf bullet points for people who fear water cooling. Would I say it's over-kill to put water cooling on an average system? I'd say yes without hesitation; but that's not the question & I'll leave it at that.

[Phrozin]

Water cooling isn't the answer, a better airflowing computer case is. The second most costly component during my new computer build last June 07 was the computer case, $330 dollars for a computer case does seem like alot. When you get the same temperatures inside a case as you do outside the case with a bunch of fans, thats awesome! I'm running an 8800GTX and these are supposed to run HOT, it idles at 52C and never go's above 68C max load. What case do you own? Mid size PC case are not enough for todays gaming systems in my opinion!

I agree. My old computer has been using a Sapphire X800 GTO (DDR3) over clocked to 530/1230 since 4/16/2006. It's still running on the stock cooler and will sometimes hit 54º C under load. The 9600 Pro I had before that was water cooled and yes the temps dropped by a good margin, but when I switched to my new case (back in 06) my air temps were only 2º hotter then water. So flow is everything.

Some believe that a negative chassis pressure will cut down on dust but increase heat, some believe that a positive chassis pressure will increase dust, but maintained will lower temps. Personally I suggest getting a case with some 120MM fans and go from there. Some of the newer cases (mid to "oh my god, I just spent an arm and a leg") have chassis access cutouts for water cooling anyway. I've done phase change, TEC, water, and air cooling. the only one that I saw enough of a drop in temps to justify the price was phase change, but be ready to blow $2000.00 to $3000.00 USD's for a well setup phase change chassis.

Seriously, look into bigger fans with low RPM and higher CFM and if that doesn't get you where you want to be then start putting together a water tower.

here is an example of a case with water inlets. Newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146050)

another one Newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119129)

Water cooling sites:
http://www.xoxide.com/

http://www.dangerden.com/store/ who couldn't by something from a store by the name of Danger Den!! (Seriously, they've been around awhile)

Water cooling guide:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a-beginners-guide-for-watercooling-your-pc,1573.html

Air cooled systems need more than the one or two fans needed by a watercooled system; which by the way can be set on low RPM by a fan controller where air cooled systems can't without suffering heat soak.

provided you have the time you can get an air cooled case down to 1 or 2 fans, course they are huge fans (120mm being the smallest 250 being the biggest I've seen so far), but your point about not being scared of water is correct, people should not be scared of water as long as they pressure check the system for at least 24 hours (48 is better) without any components installed. Personally if I had the money and time to do it again, I'd go phase change again, but my divorce is making sure I can't do that :gulp:

I've read plenty of fear mongering about water cooling & the truth is it can be affordable & can't be beaten by any air cooling option out there. You fail to give any logic for the fear you're imparting, heater core....not some "cheap throw-away part" but rather identical in form & function to the P/C radiators & at 1/15th the cost. Water inside a P/C, corrosion, cost etc. are all stock, off the shelf bullet points for people who fear water cooling. Would I say it's over-kill to put water cooling on an average system? I'd say yes without hesitation; but that's not the question & I'll leave it at that.

Affordable... yes, 100%, can't be beaten? no it can't because if it's just water cooling with no TEC or fridge then it can only cool to the ambient temp and no lower, while air's theoretical limit is the same, but I've never seen it reached. I have seen it get close though. My current comp, is running 3 120mm fans (2 case, 1 CPU) and it runs nicely and quietly, my old system (the x800 GTO system) runs 5 80MM fans and cools very well too. Course I used a smoke machine to find hot spots and dead zones which alot of people wont.

I've done 3 water setups, 1 junkyard material (worked really well i might add.), a koolance (worked well, high price, not as good as the junkyard setup), and a tower. The tower by far worked the best, and because no fans where used in my setup, it was as quite as a church on Tuesday at 1:00 AM. (beat any air cooled rig in the noise/degree race for sure)

Only thing I would suggest is to change the water once a year and never use anything but distilled water so you don't get the calcium, zinc, and all the other metal deposits on your tubes and impellers.

bottom line is this, if a person wants a cool system without spending alot of time, water can do it. If you want air cooling, you can still do it, but you are going to spend some time and going to extremes (smoke machine) to get there. If you want to be the only kid on the block with a sweet setup and you have bottomless pockets, go phase change. a truly fan-less system is really hard to make, you have hard drives, ram, northbridge, southbrige, cpu, gpu, power supply caps, and converters. That's alot of tubing, and even a good deal of fabrication, so no matter what most will always have fans in their computer.

And just to (edit* through) throw it out there, if you want to go phase change I suggest the prometeia systems. you can check them out here: FrozenCPU (http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l1/g41/Phase_Change.html)

kk, sorry for the long post,
Joe

[Kloef]

My point stands you aren't accurately describing watercooling or it's parts & implementation & are giving out information from a "scared of liquid in my P/C" viewpoint.

Ehm,thats your conclusion,based on absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Air cooled systems need more than the one or two fans needed by a watercooled system

Depends on what fans you buy...some have incredible qualities..

And please read the first post,this guy wants to know if he should buy watercooling just for his GPU,and maybe install it for any future upgrades...well i say wait untill you know what you are going to buy,cause not everything will fitt,different bridges,ATX or BTX...you could get into trouble..so i advise him to stick with what works under all circumstances,air coolers.. and its the cheapest solution for this particular problem..

You like watercooling,i dont..i think its just more parts the manufacturers can sell you to make a profit(most brands sell water and air cooling,so no discussion there) and i concluded that i personally think its not worth the trouble personally so nobody has to agree with me,or quote my whole freaking post just to prove something...want real cooling?go for phase cooling!!

We cool now??





BTW nice rigs systemlord!

[Kloef]

Btw i was wondering if anyone uses a coolant from the industry...i use coolant to cool my machinetools,and you can stick your arm in it mid-summer and it will feel like a fridge,i mean it has great heat dissipation qualities...just wondering why i never came to do that..

[Webster]

if your talking about what is needed for proper cooling then water cooling is overkill, unless you overclock to a systems extreme limits then air cooling is completely fine. now many people convince themselves they need it when in fact they just want it and can use air but choose not to.

water cooling has a wow that looks cool factor that people use to justify using it but both work great.

water cooling has a faster thermal transfer of heat because of the fact that its liquid where air doesnt have the same speed but it still efficiently removes all the heat that is being generated.

as for the comment "Air cooled systems need more than the one or two fans needed by a watercooled system"

i have a q6600 quad core, 4gb ddr2 ram, 8800gt 512mb video passively cooled, coolermaster centurian case with only one 120mm rear exhaust fan plus the power supply fan and thats it. i can play any game maxed out and never get above warm. my power supply never gets hot enough to even speed up the fan so believe what you want and do what you want but your doing it because you want to not because you need to.

i cant tell you how many systems i saw in melt down because of a tiny leak in the hose or fitting somewhere. water cooling is best left to those who push equipt. to the frying point and those who wont just close the side cover and not think about it again. its a system you need to monitor, think of it like cutting the grass, check hoses, connections, and fluid levels at least once a week.

water cooling is very very good IF you take care of it, its not for joe average.

anyway this is subsim so lets get back to the game. the thread poster has heard enough to make up his own mind so this ford vs chevy arguement is pointless.

[Phrozin]

Btw i was wondering if anyone uses a coolant from the industry...i use coolant to cool my machinetools,and you can stick your arm in it mid-summer and it will feel like a fridge,i mean it has great heat dissipation qualities...just wondering why i never came to do that..

I had tried one once upon a time, about 6 weeks into it the tubes started leaking due to the corrosion. I switched back to water and alcohol in a 10:1 ratio. I tried other ratios, but found that an 8:1 - 11:1 ratio worked best.

Joe

[Defiance]

Built gawd knows how many h2o rigs

From scrapyard heater matrix's to expensive rads from cooling places

Noticed a max of 2-3c difference in all i've tested with different rads

Went from air in the early 90's to h2o then to home-made phase change then back to air and now currently back being addicted to h2o lol

All cooling options have their ups n downsides, Water really can be extremely quiet as stated, Air also can be but you may have to trade noise for slightly less cooling (i mean things run a bit warmer)

People today panic if vidcard temps go to 70c or so, when in fact the gpu's are good for higher than this by a fair bit, Same goes for cpu's

For a quick re-entry back into watercooling i got a kit, Does what it says on the tin and was decently priced

If buying your own individual bits, Like anything start at the cooling point (the block) then consider the layout/run of piping and the diam best suited and also the pump (over many years i've tested variables and found the most tweakable part of a watercooling is the pump), If you have a fast gusher of a pump the water will pass over the hot area (block) and not absorb as much energy/heat as it otherwise could, Then again if the pump is too slow the coolant gets saturated with energy/heat much more than needed

Also throw into this the rad size/efficency/flowrate etc etc then also the CFM of fan/s needed and it fast becomes a juggling act

I doubt anyone will ever make/create the ultimate watercooling system as the variables are too variable ;)

But for me i would say go with water and enjoy lower temps with less noise

Now for kicks and really low temps look into phase-change, This is fun he he

No doubt you'll enjoy doing a watercooled rig :)

OT: Brenjen, What was/is your nick in AH ???

[Mush Martin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOgptvjwng8

[gg5056]

I have a XFX Geforce 7600GS 256mb AGP. about $ 160.00

I had no problems with this Video card.

P4 ht- 3.0gb
2 gb ram

[Brenjen]

OT: Brenjen, What was/is your nick in AH ???

Same as here, Brenjen. I got bored after two or three years & quit about a year ago. I flew Knight & was in "Satans Playmates" - good group of people right there.