Water Cooling a Motherboard

[HunterSailor]

Greetings everyone

 

So i live a in a place where it gets very hot in summers. The average temperature can vary from 25^oC to 45^oC. I have a Gigabyte GA-H170-Gaming 3. The processor (i7 6700) is watercooled with Corsair's H100 cooler. I have no worries for the processor, RAM or the GPU. But i want to add water cooling to my motherboard and leave the RAM,GPU,SSD and HDD using the case's (Cooler Master: CM 690 II ver.2) air cooling configuration. Right now i don't have a GPU but I'm planning to buy Gigabyte or Zotac GTX 970. Is there any way i can add water cooling to my motherboard?

[NJHourigan]

You really don't need to watercool your motherboard, even if it does get up to 45 ^oC, motherboards don't get hot in the same way CPUs and GPUs do. And if it does somehow get too hot, some decent airflow across it in the case should be more than enough

[HunterSailor]

3 minutes ago, NJHourigan said:

You really don't need to watercool your motherboard, even if it does get up to 45 ^oC, motherboards don't get hot in the same way CPUs and GPUs do. And if it does somehow get too hot, some decent airflow across it in the case should be more than enough

45 ^oC is the temperature of the place where i live not the motherboard. Let's say i just want to do it. Is there a way? Curiosity.

[SQZY98]

It´s very unusual to do just that, but it´s of course possible. Most people use these Mobo-blocks along with a fully watercooled system for (seemingly) more stable overclocks. You´d have to add the block with tubing, reservoir, pump,rads, fittings, fluid etc. The blocks i found are covering the VRMs only.  You could use an expandable AIO solution like EKs Predator lineup and replace the CPU block with a "monoblock". Which areas are getting especially hot on your motherboard? The PCH (southbridge)? VRM?

This is kind of wasteful and overkill but whateves. What is your budget? I think just mounting a fan facing towards the motherboard would be a better solution.

[HunterSailor]

13 minutes ago, SQZY98 said:

It´s very unusual to do just that, but it´s of course possible. Most people use these Mobo-blocks along with a fully watercooled system for (seemingly) more stable overclocks. You´d have to add the block with tubing, reservoir, pump, fittings, fluid etc. The blocks i found are covering the VRMs only.  You could use an expandable AIO solution like EKs Predator lineup and replace the CPU block with a "monoblock". Which areas are getting especially hot on your motherboard? The PCH (southbridge)? VRM?

This is kind of wasteful and overkill but whateves. What is your budget? I think just mounting a fan facing towards the motherboard would be a better solution.

Yes, I know about EKs Predator for selective number of chipsets. Also, i have a good air flow going in the case. If this overkill is going to be costly then i might just drop the idea.

[SQZY98]

3 minutes ago, titaniumshield said:

Yes, I know about EKs Predator for selective number of chipsets. Also, i have a good air flow going in the case. If this overkill is going to be costly then i might just drop the idea.

Now that i think about it, building something yourself would be cheaper because you are basically wasting your money on that CPU block that comes with it. Nonetheless you´d be looking at roughly 300$ dollars by doing it custom. You could also buy a 240 Predator and expand it with additional waterblocks. Many options. Back to that fan idea: the good airflow in your case shouldn´t be too beneficial for your motherboard, as it goes parallel with the airflow in your case with obstacles such as cables etc. weaken it even more. If you´ve got a spare fan (120 or 140) you could try that out and see what temps you are getting. Maybe thats a ok solution, even when its not that nice looking.

[HunterSailor]

1 minute ago, SQZY98 said:

Now that i think about it, building something yourself would be cheaper because you are basically wasting your money on that CPU block that comes with it. Nonetheless you´d be looking at roughly 300$ dollars by doing it custom. You could also buy a 240 Predator and expand it with additional waterblocks. Many options. Back to that fan idea: the good airflow in your case shouldn´t be too beneficial for your motherboard, as it goes parallel with the airflow in your case with obstacles such as cables etc. weaken it even more. If you´ve got a spare fan (120 or 140) you could try that out and see what temps you are getting. Maybe thats a ok solution, even when its not that nice looking.

Good thing i a have spare fans. I'll try the fan method and check for temps. If I'm not satisfied then I'll go for water blocks(custom).

Thanks.

[SQZY98]

1 minute ago, titaniumshield said:

Good thing i a have spare fans. I'll try the fan method and check for temps. If I'm not satisfied then I'll go for water blocks(custom).

Thanks.

Please let me know your results, i´m curious :3

[HunterSailor]

2 minutes ago, SQZY98 said:

Please let me know your results, i´m curious :3

SUre.

[xgn]

There isn't any ek blocks for you're motherboard just checked. Also its H not Z so why watercool in the first place ?

[HunterSailor]

7 minutes ago, xgn said:

There isn't any ek blocks for you're motherboard just checked. Also its H not Z so why watercool in the first place ?

Curiosity my friend, curiosity.

[Lurick]

Depending on how much you're willing to invest and whatnot there are a lot of generic chipset blocks on places like newegg for under $20. The only issue is they come in a few different sizes such as 40mmx40mm or 50mmx50mm so you would need to find the dimensions of the mounting points which might involve removing the existing block, and according to the intel spec sheet the package size is 23mmx23mm so maybe 40mmx40mm would work.

 

http://ark.intel.com/products/90595/Intel-GL82H170-PCH

[HunterSailor]

1 minute ago, Lurick said:

Depending on how much you're willing to invest and whatnot there are a lot of generic chipset blocks on places like newegg for under $20. The only issue is they come in a few different sizes such as 40mmx40mm or 50mmx50mm so you would need to find the dimensions of the mounting points which might involve removing the existing block, and according to the intel spec sheet the package size is 23mmx23mm so maybe 40mmx40mm would work.

 

http://ark.intel.com/products/90595/Intel-GL82H170-PCH

A little more research will help then.

Thanks for the info.

[NJHourigan]

4 hours ago, SQZY98 said:

Now that i think about it, building something yourself would be cheaper because you are basically wasting your money on that CPU block that comes with it. Nonetheless you´d be looking at roughly 300$ dollars by doing it custom. You could also buy a 240 Predator and expand it with additional waterblocks. Many options. Back to that fan idea: the good airflow in your case shouldn´t be too beneficial for your motherboard, as it goes parallel with the airflow in your case with obstacles such as cables etc. weaken it even more. If you´ve got a spare fan (120 or 140) you could try that out and see what temps you are getting. Maybe thats a ok solution, even when its not that nice looking.

I'm pretty sure airflow being parallel and running along the board is exactly what you want, look at CPU heatsinks for example they have all of their fins parallel to the direction of airflow allowing the air to run along them.

[SQZY98]

30 minutes ago, NJHourigan said:

I'm pretty sure airflow being parallel and running along the board is exactly what you want, look at CPU heatsinks for example they have all of their fins parallel to the direction of airflow allowing the air to run along them.

Yes and no. When cooling with a heatsink it´s all about surface area, which means you can´t just take a huge plane sheet of metal and blow air towards it. How heatsinks are nowadays is probably the most efficient way to cool because it offers a huge surface area with a relatively small formfactor. Models like the new CM Hyper 212X have small finns to create additional air turbulences. They just go parallel with the airflow because there is no other way. I´m not sure whats more effective, going parralel or directly towards. Maybe i´ll find something later.

 

My point was to deliver air to a specific area which otherwise only gets the very weak general airflow going through the case. Probably poorly expressed, sorry.

[OddsCrazyStuff]

8 hours ago, NJHourigan said:

You really don't need to watercool your motherboard, even if it does get up to 45 ^oC, motherboards don't get hot in the same way CPUs and GPUs do. And if it does somehow get too hot, some decent airflow across it in the case should be more than enough

I would say it can be needed in a case with lack of decent air flow, like mini atx or a silent system with sub 1000rpm fans.

But other then that, so is it mainly for the looks.