Water cooling GPU. First foray into custom water cooling

I’m a fan of ekwb, but they don’t carry a block for your card. So hope that one works for you.

I run a single Corsair XR7 360mm and have been happy with it. While I only have my CPU on it (water cooling the CPU has been able to keep the case temps little more than ambient so air cooling the GPU has been fine), I purchased it with capacity for both CPU and GPU should I desire.

If I needed more, I might add a XR5 360 for the bottom of the case. But I shouldn’t need to.

YMMV

Hopefully using Afterburner (or similar software) will be enough to cool your GPU. AMD Wattman is also suggested for Radeon cards. Trying to find the air flow sweet spot for a case can make one want water cooling. Honestly though I never want anything beyond a sealed AIO system.

I had a Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti water cooled card looped to a Bitspower Leviathan Cooling Kit. Link Here Newegg no longer sellit, but Bitspower sell both versions direct from website. It is a premade kit for CPU Block, or GPU Block. It was great for my needs, and my limited knowledge of water cooling. Low temps, and easy to maintain/use. It did great for 2 years. The leaking from worn gaskets started in the next few weeks. I had to drain the loop to replace the gaskets, and after several leaks it was a losing battle. I finally had to stop using the loop for fear of random leaking. Air cooling for GPUs was now 3 slot beasts, so I gave up on water cooling. I enjoyed it while I could trust it, but could never recover my trust for it.

Whatever route you take I hope you enjoy the outcome.

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I was in a similar situation. I “won” a RTX 3080 water cooled GPU on the NewEgg shuffle. I didn’t have to remove the backplate, the connectors were built in. Long story short, the card sat in it’s box for several months. While I’ve built 5 or 6 computers from scratch, but I had never messed with building my own water cooled system.

In the end, with the help of tech support at performance-pcs.com, I purchased the tubing, radiator, pump, fittings, fluid, etc. and I decided to attempt it. I had the GPU 9 months before I took it out of the box to make the attempt. After many hours of adjusting and trying to squeeze everything into my case… I gave up. I was too scared the water would destroy my new computer. With almost $3500 in the PC, I just couldn’t take the chance. I called all over town and not a single PC builder would attempt to put it all together.

My personal recommendation would be to skip it. Either buy an AIO or stick with standard fan cooling.

On the plus side… NewEgg accepted the card as a return. They gave me a full refund, even after 9 months and an opened package! Thanks NewEgg!!

I still have $250 worth of water cooling stuff I’ll never use… Life’s a learning experience. Sometimes you bite the bear and sometimes the bear bites you!

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Yeah. You really need to pick a case where you know your water cooling loop(s) will fit. Trying to shoehorn it into an existing case that simply isn’t built for it will generally not end up well.

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The ‘water’ in a water cooling setup is neither corrosive or conductive and is relatively safe , just incase you didnt know but probably did lol

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It won’t be after it’s been in the pipes for a year or so :smiley: So there’s always a risk, plus if the water leaks too much, it’ll end up contaminated anyway and be able to cause shorts.

(Even if it didn’t, losing water from your cooling loop is not a good thing… Hehe.)

In my experience the mistake newcomers to water cooling make is not using a proper spinner type pipe cutter which will give you a perfect 90 degree cut. Dont be tempted to use a hacksaw or even one of the shear type of cutters . The spinner cutters will cut either metal or plastic tubing and will last forever if you change the rollers occasionally.

for metal

ppc_compact

for plastic
you clamp the pipe by pulling the handle then rotate the cutter around the pipe

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Agreed and though that was not a thought when buying mine it will EASILY accommodate multiple water cooling loops.

I did know that, but it is good to let others know. Thank you very much. I am still waiting on my new pump head and rewiring the system before i know whether or not i need to go this route.