Waterblocking 7900XTX questions

[Leychee]

Hello, I've never in my life waterblocked a GPU and wanted to ask some questions before preordering the new EK.

I have a Sapphire AMD design card (non-Nitro), and my temperatures are decent, I think. Between 58-65°C idle junc, and below 88°C at full load, while capping the fan speeds at 70%.

 

Unfortunately I couldn’t get a Nitro+ AIB as they went out of stock in less than 3 minutes after their release. So, I have a couple of questions:

• With a waterblock could I technically overclock my card like a factory overclocked AIB and still have decent temps?
• Does a waterblock replace the fans? Does it make the GPU quieter?
• Any other information I should know?

I’d rather spend premium for a nice waterblock than return my current card and wait for AIB restocks.

 

I’m sorry if these questions sound stupid, but I’ve only recently heard about waterblocking a GPU and my interest was immediately piqued, so I’d love to learn more about this.

 

Thank you for your help!

[matt0725]

So a waterblock has to be paired with a pump and radiator, and some sort of reservoir, unless you are buying an all in one watercooler. Assuming you get these parts, there will no longer be fans on the GPU, but you will want fans on the radiator. These will be larger than the fans on the GPU, which move more air at less RPM, meaning they are quieter. you will also get lower temps if you get an appropriately sized radiator and run the fans fast enough, so you should have plenty of headroom to overclock the card( i dont have AMD cards, so how much overclocking youll get is beyond my knowledge)

 

Your case really helps to determine what kind of pump, reservoir, and radiator you can fit and easily work with, so you may want to post that as well.

[Leychee]

3 minutes ago, matt0725 said:

So a waterblock has to be paired with a pump and radiator, and some sort of reservoir, unless you are buying an all in one watercooler. Assuming you get these parts, there will no longer be fans on the GPU, but you will want fans on the radiator. These will be larger than the fans on the GPU, which move more air at less RPM, meaning they are quieter. you will also get lower temps if you get an appropriately sized radiator and run the fans fast enough, so you should have plenty of headroom to overclock the card( i dont have AMD cards, so how much overclocking youll get is beyond my knowledge)

 

Your case really helps to determine what kind of pump, reservoir, and radiator you can fit and easily work with, so you may want to post that as well.

Thank you for the detailed response! So with a waterblock, a reference card could technically get the same overclocking capabilities as an AIB with better cooling such as the Nitro+? I'm thinking about preordering this: https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-quantum-vector2-rx-7900-xtx-d-rgb-nickel-plexi - it doesn't come with an AIO so I assume I'll have to get one?

 

I have a Corsair 4000D Airflow. 

 

[matt0725]

Overclocking is a lot of luck on exactly how far you can push it. No one can promise a certain performance level, but I'd expect youd likely get close to the nitro card range. you can probably search around to see how others are doing on overclocking their cards for an idea.

 

The block you linked seems to be compatible with the card. You have the all black cooler triple fan card if i googled everything corretly, and the EK configurator sees that as an 'amd' branded card not a sapphire card, but the photos look identical to me.

 

In the corsair 4000d, you can pretty much fit whatever you want radiator wise. a 240mm radiator should do fine for cooling your GPU, but again maybe see if someone else chimes in to be sure. Along with a radiator, youll want a pump, reservoir (sometimes these come nicely as a combo piece) tubing, and fittings for all of these pieces. Each part will need 2 fittings (an in and an out). I suggest soft tubing, as you can just cut to length and attach, rather than hard tubing, which either needs tons of 90 and 45 degree fittings (expensive) or has to be bent and cut perfect length, which is time consuming and can be difficult. all tubing comes in a few different sizes, and there are different fitting sizes to fit these different tubing sizes.

 

I think the EK website offers kits which include all of this stuff in one click and buy, but if the block isn't available yet you probably can't order the kit just yet either. You could take a look at what models it recommends and add those to your cart manually to kind of cheat the system lol. all EK parts may not be the absolute cheapest or best value way to go, but sticking with one brands stuff makes it less likely to encounter problems with stuff working together. fittings and tubing are the main concerns, as every brand has a little variance in the size, and a loose tube/fitting causing a leak is a bad time down the line. any semi modern LTT video about how to watercool is still applicable today for reference as well, as the only thing that changes is your GPU model and block.

[Leychee]

On 1/2/2023 at 4:14 AM, matt0725 said:

Overclocking is a lot of luck on exactly how far you can push it. No one can promise a certain performance level, but I'd expect youd likely get close to the nitro card range. you can probably search around to see how others are doing on overclocking their cards for an idea.

 

The block you linked seems to be compatible with the card. You have the all black cooler triple fan card if i googled everything corretly, and the EK configurator sees that as an 'amd' branded card not a sapphire card, but the photos look identical to me.

 

In the corsair 4000d, you can pretty much fit whatever you want radiator wise. a 240mm radiator should do fine for cooling your GPU, but again maybe see if someone else chimes in to be sure. Along with a radiator, youll want a pump, reservoir (sometimes these come nicely as a combo piece) tubing, and fittings for all of these pieces. Each part will need 2 fittings (an in and an out). I suggest soft tubing, as you can just cut to length and attach, rather than hard tubing, which either needs tons of 90 and 45 degree fittings (expensive) or has to be bent and cut perfect length, which is time consuming and can be difficult. all tubing comes in a few different sizes, and there are different fitting sizes to fit these different tubing sizes.

 

I think the EK website offers kits which include all of this stuff in one click and buy, but if the block isn't available yet you probably can't order the kit just yet either. You could take a look at what models it recommends and add those to your cart manually to kind of cheat the system lol. all EK parts may not be the absolute cheapest or best value way to go, but sticking with one brands stuff makes it less likely to encounter problems with stuff working together. fittings and tubing are the main concerns, as every brand has a little variance in the size, and a loose tube/fitting causing a leak is a bad time down the line. any semi modern LTT video about how to watercool is still applicable today for reference as well, as the only thing that changes is your GPU model and block.

Thank you again for such a detailed response. As I can see it's not exactly a cheap installation, as I first thought I only needed the waterblock (which is approximately 200€). Including the waterblock, do you think a 300/350€ budget will be enough?

I appreciate you taking the time to reply, I'll take a look on EK's website and hope I don't mess it all up  

[andrewmp6]

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