parts to cool on a GPU?

[GreatGandini]

I am designing a waterblock for my GPU and I understand that the chip, mosfets, and vram need cooling, what else needs cooling? I am designing this as a project for my engineering class, the more detailed the better.

[RONOTHAN##]

That's it, the only parts that really generate any meaningful heat are the GPU core itself, the memory chips (though depending on the card these might actually prefer to run warm), and the power stages in the VRM. It might be a good idea to also add in some cooling for the chokes, not because they generate any meaningful amount of heat (if the card is properly designed), but because they're fully metal and soldered to the ground plane, they're a good way to extract heat from the rest of the board and actually lower temperatures of some surrounding components like the power stages.

[GreatGandini]

12 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

That's it, the only parts that really generate any meaningful heat are the GPU core itself, the memory chips (though depending on the card these might actually prefer to run warm), and the power stages in the VRM. It might be a good idea to also add in some cooling for the chokes, not because they generate any meaningful amount of heat (if the card is properly designed), but because they're fully metal and soldered to the ground plane, they're a good way to extract heat from the rest of the board and actually lower temperatures of some surrounding components like the power stages.

so by chokes what do you mean, what are they attached to?

[RONOTHAN##]

5 minutes ago, GreatGandini said:

so by chokes what do you mean, what are they attached to?

Chokes are another name for inductors, they're part of the VRM. 

 

 

These things.

[GreatGandini]

On 4/19/2022 at 10:36 PM, RONOTHAN## said:

Chokes are another name for inductors, they're part of the VRM. 

 

 

These things.

ok thanks!

[GreatGandini]

 

On 4/19/2022 at 10:13 AM, RONOTHAN## said:

the memory chips (though depending on the card these might actually prefer to run warm),

how do I know what video cards prefer warmer memory or not?

[RONOTHAN##]

Just now, GreatGandini said:

 

how do I know what video cards prefer warmer memory or not?

It depends on the specific memory chips on it. 980 Tis, for example, came with either Samsung or SK Hynix GDDR5 on them, each with markedly different thermal properties. The Hynix chips worked best at as low as you can go, but the Samsung chips sweet spot at where the memory works best.