Upgrade Path

[AyePapiNoStoppy]

Before I start here is my build

-Corsair 220T Airflow

-MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus

-Ryzen 7 3700x

-Corsair Vengeance RGB 2x16 @ 3200

-Corsair  h155i Cappelix AIO

-RTX 2080FE

-EVGA 850GQ

 

I was recently diagnosing some cooling issues on my card, upon removal of the cooler I noticed a large divot in the heatsink that was deep enough to expose about 1 square centimeter of copper under the nickel plating. I am considering creating a custom loop for just my gpu with a 120mm cooler. My other thoughts would be to either find a stock air cooler to replace my faulty one, or to go with something like the NZXT Kraken. Provided I use a decent size reservoir and powerful enough pump, is there the option to throw in a larger radiator and add the cpu to the loop?

[Bombastinator]

Arctic cooling sells some generic gpu replacement air coolers that are at least supposed to be functional for that card.  They certainly aren’t small.  It would be a ton cheaper than a gpu only custom loop and a lot less work to boot. 
 

there used to be AIOs that could be added to.  I’d rather go with a custom loop at that point though.  If you want to do that you’ll need more than just a 120mm radiator for the cpu and gpu. 
 

 

[VeganJoy]

a custom loop with literally just a 120mm rad? i mean its your money...

 

stock coolers are usually 50-100 bucks for all the necessary hardware, a kraken g12 with a decent aio would be in the 100-120 dollar range. i'd get a 240mm rad at least for noise reasons. a comparable custom loop that you could expand later would be at least 200-250 just to start with, and that'd be with zero dollars into how nice it looks and all that

[Bombastinator]

7 minutes ago, VeganJoy said:

a custom loop with literally just a 120mm rad? i mean its your money...

 

stock coolers are usually 50-100 bucks for all the necessary hardware, a kraken g12 with a decent aio would be in the 100-120 dollar range. i'd get a 240mm rad at least for noise reasons. a comparable custom loop that you could expand later would be at least 200-250 just to start with, and that'd be with zero dollars into how nice it looks and all that

$100 for a stock gpu air cooler? That’s more than I expected. Explains why Arctic cooling sells the generic ones.  

[MaratM]

6 hours ago, AyePapiNoStoppy said:

upon removal of the cooler I noticed a large divot in the heatsink that was deep enough to expose about 1 square centimeter of copper under the nickel plating. 

Some pictures would be nice

[AyePapiNoStoppy]

8 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Arctic cooling sells some generic gpu replacement air coolers that are at least supposed to be functional for that card.  They certainly aren’t small.  It would be a ton cheaper than a gpu only custom loop and a lot less work to boot. 
 

there used to be AIOs that could be added to.  I’d rather go with a custom loop at that point though.  If you want to do that you’ll need more than just a 120mm radiator for the cpu and gpu. 
 

 

That’s what the question about down the line is, if I start with just a 120 for just the gpu, down the line I’ll put in a bigger rad then I’ll add the cpu to the loop

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, AyePapiNoStoppy said:

That’s what the question about down the line is, if I start with just a 120 for just the gpu, down the line I’ll put in a bigger rad then I’ll add the cpu to the loop

The cost of a 120 vs a 240 is less than 200% and the standard ratio is minimum 1 fans worth of radiator per block.  If you bought a 240 instead of a 120 it’s possible you wouldn’t have to buy two radiators at all and it could turn out you want more than one radiator for the gpu. It puts out more heat than the cpu.

[VeganJoy]

3 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

If you bought a 240 instead of a 120 it’s possible you wouldn’t have to buy two radiators at all and it could turn out you want more than one radiator for the gpu. It puts out more heat than the cpu.

it does confuse me how a lot of hybrid cards get away with a single 120mm aio for a 200w+ card whereas a 120mm is barely enough for under 100w of cpu heat

[Bombastinator]

20 minutes ago, VeganJoy said:

it does confuse me how a lot of hybrid cards get away with a single 120mm aio for a 200w+ card whereas a 120mm is barely enough for under 100w of cpu heat

One Key there could be hybrid.  Card isn’t entirely water cooled.  Another could be implied by a PSU calculator I was looking at recently.  they were talking about wattage inflation.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Bombastinator

[MaratM]

3 hours ago, VeganJoy said:

it does confuse me how a lot of hybrid cards get away with a single 120mm aio for a 200w+ card whereas a 120mm is barely enough for under 100w of cpu heat

Simple, rump up the fan or rise the coolant temp, usually both, a good watercooling loop can run up to 60c on coolant temp. However if the coolant is 60c the gpu temp is around 80, it is all within the specs but what is the point of doing so. Also you have to take into account airflow restrictions in your case therefore radiator-fan efficiency will go down. I think a 240 is a minimum rad size for any gpu. To have comfortable fan noise level a 120 mm per 100watts of real tdp thus a cpu is above 100watts you need 240 rad and gpu is just above 200watts so you need a 240rad as a bare minimum.