Kraken G10

[alexis99]

Hey, I want to watercool my two EVGA GTX 760 with the G10 but some people say that it cool very well the GPU but not the other things one the graphic card even with the 92mm fan on the bracket, so does it worth it?

[Jodomcfrodo]

Don't buy it. The VRM and Memory (I think) are left only air cooled. You won't be able to crank the voltage like you would with a proper custom loop. 

[alexis99]

Ok thanks and if I dont OC them?

[Imabigmac]

Don't buy it. The VRM and Memory (I think) are left only air cooled. You won't be able to crank the voltage like you would with a proper custom loop. 

but if all they are seeking is cool and quiet and NO over clocking, cranking the voltage is irrelevant.   

[Jodomcfrodo]

but if all they are seeking is cool and quiet and NO over clocking, cranking the voltage is irrelevant.   

Two AIO pumps is not quiet either. 

[alexis99]

Ok and was thinking of buying 2 Kraken X31?

[Imabigmac]

Two AIO pumps is not quiet either. 

Not sure what level noise the OP card is, but at least from my experience two AIO pumps ARE quieter than a reference card. My AIO pumps are not loud at all - The sounds of fans and air drown out those noises. 

[Jodomcfrodo]

Not sure what level noise the OP card is, but at least from my experience two AIO pumps ARE quieter than a reference card. My AIO pumps are not loud at all - The sounds of fans and air drown out those noises. 

But at the same time who wants half silence? You still need high RPM fans on those rads considering they will only be 120mm rads. 

[Imabigmac]

But at the same time who wants half silence? You still need high RPM fans on those rads considering they will only be 120mm rads. 

Well two 120m noctua's/eloops/typhoons, gets rid of the fan noise. Yea sure if you want complete silence its not going to happen - you can get close.  

[alexis99]

So if I don't OC my card and the noise level is a out the same, it's not worth it? (and I prefer the look of the EVGA cooler to the G10 bracket)

[alexis99]

noise level is about the same*

[Imabigmac]

So if I don't OC my card and the noise level is a out the same, it's not worth it? (and I prefer the look of the EVGA cooler to the G10 bracket)

Then there is no real point. 

 

But I bet you would see a noise difference with a good quiet fan and the AIO, but I have no clue how loud your current card so I can't say how much of a difference. That said if both cards are close to each other (standard sli config) There will be more noise with air coolers. 

 

Two G10's would also need extra spacing. Not because of air flow/noise but because of height issues. They are more 3 slots cards. 

[alexis99]

Space is not a problem, I have a Graphite 760T, so there is a another solution watercool my card than the G10 or a custom loop?

[79wjd]

Don't buy it. The VRM and Memory (I think) are left only air cooled. You won't be able to crank the voltage like you would with a proper custom loop. 

@Faceman will disagree with you. 

 

Also, I wouldn't really compare an AIO cooling solution to a custom loop.

[alexis99]

Ok and at first I wanted to do a custom loop but I couldn't find any water block for my card so give up and looking for AIO

[Faceman]

Hey, I want to watercool my two EVGA GTX 760 with the G10 but some people say that it cool very well the GPU but not the other things one the graphic card even with the 92mm fan on the bracket, so does it worth it?

Honestly, the GTX 760 is not really a card you water cool.  Use the money that you would spend doing a G10 Mod($100) towards a more powerful GPU.

 

That being said, I see that you are running two GTX 760s, so the performance of two should be very good.  Personally, I would divest that money into a more powerful single GPU.  Sell your 760s, can probably get ~$300 + $200 you would have spent doing G10 mods to both and you have $500.  That money is much better spent going with a GTX 970, and when you get another $100, buy a second.  Or a single 980.

 

If you are dead set on water cooling your current cards, I would only recommend doing the G10 modification to one of the cards though, the top card which is typically the hotter of the two. 

 

What case are you using?

 

I am going to also post my experience with the G10 Mod onto my EVGA GTX 780 SC w/ ACX Cooler to help illustrate that the G10 on its own without heat sinks is a viable option.

 

@Jodomcfrodo

 

I am about to copy and paste a wall of text that will help explain why the G10 modification on its own is a perfectly acceptable solution to cool not only the core, but the VRMs as well.  It is from a conversation I had with another member on the forum, so if things seem misplaced, or not in context, that is why.

 

I personally own an EVGA GTX 780 SC w/ ACX Cooling.  I did the G10 mod to it, and I am incredibly happy with the results.

 

     Does the GPU need additional heatsinks 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 discredit it to some extend.  For starters, in their gaming benchmark/temperature test, the VRM temperatures are perfectly fine, they are even lower with the G10 than with the  stock heat sink of both the R9 290 and GTX Titan.  The only time when we see the temperatures higher with the G10 than the stock heat sink are when they run Kombustor/Furmark.

 

     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.  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, not-overclocked card for my card 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.

 

     Back to the Puget review.  They ran Kombustor during their review/test, which as a reviewer, they should try and test the card in all scenarios in order to give the reader an idea of what to expect.  My problem with the review is that it is an unrealistic scenario, one which I would not recommend anyone to do at home, and you are unlikely to encounter that type of load during regular use.  In their Unigine test, the VRM temperatures are perfectly fine, even lower with the G10.  Another thing I forgot to add, VRAM temperatures are not really an issue, it is the VRMs that you need to be concerned with.

 

     On the OCN G10 Owner's Club, which is a fantastic resource for all things G10, we asked members who can monitor the VRM temperatures to run some tests with their cards.  Simple before and after tests.  The test that most closely resembles our card, is the Asus DCUII GTX 780Ti.  If you read Post #1147

     You will see that this guy with the Asus GTX 780 was getting stock heatsinks temperatures of 86C on the Core and 104C on the VRMs, his card was overclocked.  You can look at the link to see specifics.  Once he did the G10 modification without 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.  Keep in mind that the DCUII card has a mid-plate covering the VRMs similar to our EVGA card, so this passive cooling does help.  Compare this to a card without a mid plate, and I expect temperatures to be a little higher.

     There was another test done by someone with an R9 290.  They went as far as to do a before and after test with heat sinks on their G10.  I must have misplaced the link to the exact post number, but I remember that they went from something like 90C on the core all the way down to 55C. VRMs went from 110C down to 75C.  Most importantly, when they added heatsinks the VRM temperatures dropped from 75C to 60C.  So adding heat sinks does help out.  I believe this was with a reference R9 290, so it was a blank card without mid-plate to passively cool VRAM and VRMs.

 

     Like with your EVGA 780 SC, and mine, these cards come with build in mid-plates that passively cool the VRAM and VRMs. Because of this, adding additional heatsinks on the VRAM and VRMs are not necessary, but you will find a lot of people adding them anyways.  Myself included.  It would be more beneficial to add it to a non-reference card, but for our cards, it is optional.  I personally added a few tiny aluminum heat sinks to mine to cover just the VRMs.  It is a $6 part for extra peace of mind, and you can a lot of extras to use maybe elsewhere in your build. Cosmos Aluminum VGA Heat Sinks.  In order to apply these heat sinks, you will need aftermarket thermal tape.  The included thermal tape is not strong enough to keep the heat sinks from falling off.  You have to first peel off the included tape on the heat sink, and then apply your own double sided thermal tape to make it stick.

 

     Adding heat additional heat sinks is entirely up to you, it is not required, but it does help.  I recently bought an NZXT Sentry 3 which has a temperature probe, and I have the probe directly on my VRMs.  Unfortunately, I never ran a before and after test because I bought the fan controller after I already did the G10 modification, so I am unable to tell you what kind of temperatures I was getting on the VRMs with the stock heat sink.  Also, I don't want to remove the aluminum heat sinks to do a before/after temperatures to see how much the heat sinks lower temperatures.  What I can tell you is that I have never seen the temperature probe report over 54C, but I have incredible airflow in my case.  I also use a VGA to Fan adapter so that I can plug the 92mm fan directly into my video card and not take up a motherboard fan header.  I then control the 92mm fan through MSI AfterBurner.  I just set it to a constant 75%.  You don't want it on a fan curve because the temperature is measured from the core.  This fan is for the VRMs, so set it to a constant RPM.  Also, my card is not overclocked because it does a healthy +100Mhz on the Core and +250Mhz on the Memory at stock voltage. If I were to increase the voltage, temperatures would probably increase all around.

 

One thing about the Kraken G10 and our specific card is that the mid plate interferes with the mounting of the G10.  There are two ways to get around this.  The first option, which I don't recommend because it will void your warranty is to cut off the 4 "prongs" that extend towards the GPU die.   The link I posted is to someone who did just that, it worked for him, but he voided his warranty in the process.

 

The 2nd way, which is what I advocate, is for you to buy a Copper Shim which will help transfer the heat from the GPU Die to the AIO. You will need to buy a 20mm x 20mm x .8mm Copper Shim. This is not an optional piece.  You will need to apply thermal paste to both sides of the shim.  This will not negatively impact performance, at least it has not for me.  If you don't already own some thermal paste, I highly, highly recommend Gelid GC Extreme. It works wonders on both my CPU and GPU.  For my CPU, it dropped temperatures by 2-3C depending on voltage, and on my GPU(before G10 mod) it dropped my temperatures by 4C.

 

To answer questions #1 and #3.

 

     I recommend that you buy a Corsair H55 and mount it as rear exhaust, it should cost $50-$60.  It is far and away the most popular AIO to use with the G10.  It is the least expensive AIO, and offers the best price:performance.  After 120mm, you start experiencing diminishing returns.  These guys with full 240/280mm AIOs are only getting 4-6C better temperatures, and often have a hard time finding places to properly mount their radiators.  Get the H55 and buy a 2nd fan to run in push/pull. It is reliable, comes with a long warranty, and Corsair has a good history of replacing components if for whatever reason there was a leak.  A leak is highly unlikely, but good to know that Corsair has your back if anything were to go wrong.  Remember to always test your AIOs out of the system before putting it inside or around components.

 

     When I was buying my AIO, it was between an X31 and an H55.  I went for the X31 because I had heard such good things about NZXT AIOs, and because I have a full tower case, so if I wanted to mount it elsewhere, I would have longer tubes.  16in on the NZXT compared to 12in on the Corsair.  I ended up mounting it as rear exhaust, so the additional tube length is not necessary, and actually looks really silly.  The X31 is falsely advertised.  It claims to have a variable speed pump, which is not really true because you control the pump through fan header just like every other AIO.  The CAM software that comes with it is a joke, I uninstalled it after the first day.  Worst of all, the pump makes a lot of noise. 

     You want to mount your radiator as exhaust because the air the comes out of the rad is HOT.  This is a 230TDP GPU that is using a 120mm heat exchanger.  It does the job very well, but the heat that is blown out of the rad is very hot.  You want this air going out of your system, not into your system.  Especially with an H440 because this case is known for poor airflow.  Users in the OCN G10 Owner's Club have reported temperature drops by as much as 10C just by switching the radiator from intake to exhaust.  10C is an extreme, usually you will expect 3-5C.  Bottom line, you want it as exhaust.

 

Here is a list of components you should get:

Corsair H55 - $50

NZXT G10  - $25

Copper Shim 20mm x 20mm x .8mm - $2.50

 

Optional:

Cosmos Aluminum Heat Sinks - $6

Sekisui Double Sided Adhesive Thermal Tape - $2.75

VGA to PWM Fan Adapter - $5

Gelid GC Extreme Thermal Paste - $11

Cooler Master Blade Master 120mm PWM Fan - $11

 

Here is what my system looks like:

 

Here are my temperatures during a 5 hour long BF4 Session:

 

Ambient temperature is 23.8C/75F, but my computer case is right underneath an A/C vent, so that cold air is siphoned directly into my system.  I run my X31 with 2 fans in push/pull @ 1500rpm(60%), Pump at 1500rpm(90%).  I highly recommend the Cooler Master Blade Master 120's.  They are fantastic static pressure fans that don't get enough love.  They are inexpensive, and perform incredibly well.

 

Figure I post my CPU specs as well:

i5-4670k, 4.5Ghz @ 1.160v.

Cooler Master Seidon 240M, Pump @ 1350rpm(90%), Fans @ 1250rpm(50%)

 

If you have back plates for your 780s, you can get them to fit.  You will have to thin down or completely remove the foam pad that comes with the G10's back mounting piece.

[alexis99]

Ok and should I get the H50 or H55?

[Faceman]

Ok and should I get the H50 or H55?

H55.

[alexis99]

Ok and btw my case is a Corsair Graphite 760T

[Faceman]

Ok and btw my case is a Corsair Graphite 760T

Set the H55 to exhaust in the rear of the case. Have it attached to your top card. Also a good idea to buy a 2nd 120mm fan for push/pull.

[alexis99]

Ok thanks