Hydro Series HG10. Will it be worth it?

[Faceman]

@riad That is one sexy rig.

 

To get the best performance, you would want to have both AIOs hooked up to the front as exhausts, and flip your H100i + rear fan to intake.

 

You could have the AIOs one in the rear, one in the front, but I think it would look weird.  Might be a lot easier to work with though.  If you did that, you would have to set it to exhaust and H100i to intake.

 

It looks like you have a lot of room in the front and the rear, so you could do push/pull with both AIOs for enhanced performance.  I run push/pull with my X31 @ 60% fan speed and I never exceed 49C

[noyjitat]

The problem with the G10 can be solved with $10 worth of heat sinks and thermal tape.

The HG10, has a problem of its own. It is only compatible with reference cards. Not reference PCB, reference cards. If you have any kind of non-reference card, the HG10 will not work for your card. The HG10 incorporates the blower style fan from the reference card into its design, without it, it will not work.

There has been speculation that the HG10 has been delayed to try and improve the design to include a blower style fan so that it works with all types of cards.

Until then, the Kraken G10 is a compelling product that works on almost every card available from many past generations as well.

So... it does work with non reference cards you just have to buy a blower fan for it? Is that the only way "IT doesn't work?" Like could I install this on my gigabyte r9 290 windforce and just buy a blower fan? 

[Faceman]

So... it does work with non reference cards you just have to buy a blower fan for it? Is that the only way "IT doesn't work?" Like could I install this on my gigabyte r9 290 windforce and just buy a blower fan? 

I don't think so, but I'm not positive.

 

Just buy a G10 + H55 and if you're really concerned, some aluminum heatsinks for only $6 and you'll be good to go. Not only is it available right now and performs exceptionally well, it is usable on other cards if you ever upgrade.  If you bought an HG10 you are stuck with that bracket for that specific card, and we don't even know if it is compatible with non-reference cards.

 

  The Kraken G10 gets a lot of bad publicity because people claim that it has insufficient Voltage Regulation Module(VRM) and Video Card RAM(VRAM) Cooling.  For starters, the VRAM never gets hot enough to be worried about, so lets focus on the VRMs.  Does the GPU need additional heat sinks for the VRAM and VRMs?  In short, no.

 

   The whole "insufficient VRAM/VRM cooling" began with a review of the G10 by Puget Systems.  This review is probably the most critical review of the G10 out there.  While it makes an interesting point, I have to explain its critical flaw to a certain extend.  To begin, their Unigine temperature test, which is most closely related to video game performance, their measured temperatures are perfectly fine, they are even lower with the G10 than with the  stock heat sink for both the GTX Titan and Reference R9 290X(Notorious for high heat).  The only time when we see the temperatures higher with the G10 than the stock heat sink are when they run Kombustor.

 

     Kombustor/Furmark is a program that should NEVER be run.  It puts unnecessary load on the GPU that is completely unrealistic.  It is a card killer.  It is uncommon, but happens enough that it needs to be mentioned.  Kombustor can and will brick your card.  It happened to me earlier this year, and it happens to many others.  I like Tiny Tom Logan's analogy of this stress test.  "It is like the Navy Seals, it is incredibly rigorous and has a low pass rate."

     I like to give my components 2 weeks of break in time before overclocking to make sure everything is working properly.  This is what I did with my brand new, MSi GTX 770 Lightning.  I had used the card for 2 weeks, no problems, everything going fine.  As you know with a Lightning, this is a card built specifically for overclocking.  Without knowing what I know now, I ran Kombustor at stock settings to get a baseline for my overclocks.  It took all of 3 minutes running Kombustor on a brand new, factory settings card for it to die.  I am not the only one this has happened to, so I always tell my story whenever I get a chance because Kombustor is a dangerous program, and should not be used.  If you want to run some benchmarks for your GPU, use Unigine, 3DMark, and In-game benchmark utilities.  Not Furmark/Kombustor.

 

     Back to the Puget review.  They ran Kombustor during their test, which as a reviewer, they should do in order to review the G10 in all scenarios to give the reader an idea of what to expect.  My problem with the review and the negative perception it has created is that it is an unrealistic scenario, one which I would not recommend anyone do at home, and you are unlikely to encounter that type of load during regular use.  I'm not aware of any real world applications where your GPU would be put under that much stress.  So lets look at the part of the review that pertains to real world scenarios, their Unigine portion of the test.  The VRM temperatures are perfectly fine, even lower with the G10 than the stock heat sink.  This is with "naked" cards.  A lot of non-reference cards which a lot of people own come with mid-plates that passively cool the VRAM and VRMs. 

 

     To give you an idea of what VRM temperatures are like for those of us at home, we asked members of the OCN G10 Owner's Club, who have cards that can monitor the VRM temperatures to run some tests.  Simple before and after tests. There are two reviews that I will point to. The Asus DCUII GTX 780Ti, Post #1147 and a reference R9 290 Post #1486 & Post #1500

   You will see that the guy with the Asus GTX 780Ti was getting DCUII temperatures of 86C on the Core and 104C on the VRMs, his card was overclocked.  You can look at the link to see specifics of his OC, nothing major, very average.  Once he did the G10 modification without extra heat sinks, he was able to further overclock his card, and temperatures dropped to 49C on the Core, and 81C on the VRMs.  This tells us two things.  #1, the VRMs can withstand a lot of heat, #2 the G10's Fan does an excellent job of cooling the VRMs on its own. 

     There was another test done with an R9 290.  They went as far as to do a before and after test with heat sinks on their G10. that they went from something like 90C on the core with the reference cooler all the way down to 55C with G10 + H55. VRMs went from 110C down to 75C.  Most importantly, when they added heat sinks the VRM temperatures dropped from 75C to 60C.  So adding heat sinks does help out if you are concerned about VRM temperatures. This was with a reference R9 290, so it was a naked card without mid-plate to passively help cool VRAM and VRMs.  These are just two examples, if you read through that thread, there are many more.

      In summation,VRM temperatures are not a concern as long as you don't run a dangerous program like Kombustor/Furmark.  For awhile now people have been thinking that its a hardware problem, when in reality, its a software problem.  You will be perfectly fine buying just a Kraken G10 + AIO of your choice without extra heat sinks.  Any extras you decide to buy are optional.  Here is a list of my optional extras you might want to buy to go along with your G10:

 

1 Pack of Cosmos mini Aluminum VGA Heatsinks(20pc) - $6 You can place these on your VRMs for peace of mind if you like.  It is what I did, even with a card that has a mid-plate.  My VRMs have never exceeded 54C according to my NZXT Sentry 3 Fan Controller.

 

1 Pack of Sekisui Double-Sided Adhesive Thermal Heatsink Tape(2pc) - $3 The heat sinks come with thermal tape pre-applied, but it is not very good quality and people report them falling off.  Buy this high end thermal tape to get better heat transfer, and to make sure your heat sinks stay on.  You will have to remove the old pre-applied tape before using the good tape.

 

Aftermarket Thermal Compound, it comes with the AIO Cooler, but if you want to buy some performance stuff to shave off an additional 1-4C buy your own.  Can also be used on your CPU.  It is also nice to have just in case you need to remount anything.  The Cooler Master Seidon 240M actually comes with a tube that you can apply yourself, so you will have some extra.  This TIM is good, but definitely not "performance" stuff.  I recommend Gelid GC-Extreme - $11

 

 VGA to PWM Fan Adapter - $5  This Fan Adapter is very nice because it allows you to plug the G10's 92mm fan directly into the GPU instead of into the valuable motherboard fan headers.  Once plugged into the video card, you can control the fan speed in MSI Afterburner.  Set it to a constant speed, not a fan curve.  The reason being is that the temperature is derived from the core.  The fan is for the VRMs.  Set it to a constant value of close to 100%.

 

Cooler Master Blade Master 120mm PWM Fan - $12  A 2nd 120mm fan for your H55 will go a long way in cooling performance, and noise.  Having two fans allows you to run them at lower speeds, keeping the noise down, while maintaining the same awesomely low temperatures as a single fan at high speed, or crank them both up for even better performance.

[noyjitat]

I have a rma replacement seidon 240 that isn't be used and while it isn't listed on the g10 list. Do you happen to know if it will fit correctly? I see you mentioned it when talking about the thermal compound but wanted to be sure.

[Faceman]

I have a rma replacement seidon 240 that isn't be used and while it isn't listed on the g10 list. Do you happen to know if it will fit correctly? I see you mentioned it when talking about the thermal compound but wanted to be sure.

It will not.  G10 Requires an ASETEK made AIO, the Cooler Master is not compatible.

 

I use a Seidon 240M on my CPU, and the thermal compound I use on both my CPU and GPU is Gelid GC Extreme.

[airdeano]

I have a rma replacement seidon 240 that isn't be used and while it isn't listed on the g10 list. Do you happen to know if it will fit correctly? I see you mentioned it when talking about the thermal compound but wanted to be sure.

 

nopes, your water kit does not have this style of mounting (what the G10 needs):

 

[WhiteSkyMage]

Gosh guys, CLLCs really? Get a OLLC like Swiftech. It does it much better!