Graphics cards and water-cooling

[CardinalHunter]

I'm new to custom liquid cooling so if I wanna liquid cool a GTX 1080 Ti along with my CPU would one of any brand works?

[Zyndo]

3 minutes ago, CardinalHunter said:

I'm new to custom liquid cooling so if I wanna liquid cool a GTX 1080 Ti along with my CPU would one of any brand works?

are you looking for good water cooling brands? or do you have a more specific question? tough to understand that sentence.

[CardinalHunter]

Just now, Zyndo said:

are you looking for good water cooling brands? or do you have a more specific question? tough to understand that sentence.

no no no I meant as in a gpu of any brand would work right since I'm gonna be directly liquid-cooling it

[Zyndo]

Just now, CardinalHunter said:

no no no I meant as in a gpu of any brand would work right since I'm gonna be directly liquid-cooling it

well if you want a full cover GPU block, then you need to make sure that the company you're getting your products from has a block which fits your specific GPU model. not all GPU's have the same PCB layout, so you're going to have to make sure they're compatible. usually if you know for sure you're going to water cool, most people buy reference cards (founders edition) since most companies will have a block for the stock layout. however if you get something like an EVGA FTW3, that card will have a different PCB than the original reference version, and thus will need a different full cover block. However so long as you check before hand to make sure you can get a matching block from EK or alphacool or someone like that, then you can get any GPU on the market.

[atomicus]

It's worth mentioning also that if you're watercooling a GPU, there is no point buying a more expensive card. They will all perform the same anyway (within reason), so it makes no sense paying for a more expensive one when you're removing the cooler. I would lean towards EVGA personally (taking in to account block compatibility mentioned above) as they have an excellent warranty.

[Zyndo]

2 hours ago, atomicus said:

It's worth mentioning also that if you're watercooling a GPU, there is no point buying a more expensive card. They will all perform the same anyway (within reason), so it makes no sense paying for a more expensive one when you're removing the cooler. I would lean towards EVGA personally (taking in to account block compatibility mentioned above) as they have an excellent warranty.

Its also worth noting that this statement is only really true with pascal here (and I've not seen testing done on a 1080ti yet). in previous generations (and quite possibly in future generations) advanced PCB designs with more power draw, more power phases, high quality materials, binning, etc. often lead to higher potentials between varying cards. It wasn't a HUGE difference, but we're talking a couple % more performance if you're really interested in them bragging rights haha

[atomicus]

10 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

Its also worth noting that this statement is only really true with pascal here (and I've not seen testing done on a 1080ti yet). in previous generations (and quite possibly in future generations) advanced PCB designs with more power draw, more power phases, high quality materials, binning, etc. often lead to higher potentials between varying cards. It wasn't a HUGE difference, but we're talking a couple % more performance if you're really interested in them bragging rights haha

 

That's valid, although it really depends how much more cost we're talking and if that extra few % is worth that to someone.

[CardinalHunter]

4 hours ago, Zyndo said:

Its also worth noting that this statement is only really true with pascal here (and I've not seen testing done on a 1080ti yet). in previous generations (and quite possibly in future generations) advanced PCB designs with more power draw, more power phases, high quality materials, binning, etc. often lead to higher potentials between varying cards. It wasn't a HUGE difference, but we're talking a couple % more performance if you're really interested in them bragging rights haha

 

4 hours ago, atomicus said:

 

That's valid, although it really depends how much more cost we're talking and if that extra few % is worth that to someone.

So can I just get a 1080 ti FE from any manufacturer or is it recommended for a noob like me to get one from evga for its warranty even though as far as I can recall I don't remember even evga covers the warranty liquid-cooled cards

[atomicus]

Just now, CardinalHunter said:

 

So can I just get a 1080 ti FE from any manufacturer or is it recommended for a noob like me to get one from evga for its warranty even though as far as I can recall I don't remember even evga covers the warranty liquid-cooled cards

 

I would double check the warranty with whatever manufacturer you go with, but I know EVGA have no issues with cards being used for watercooling, providing the card isn't damaged in removal of the cooler of course. Obviously if your card (or any component) is damaged by your loop leaking, then no warranty will cover you there... in such cases you would have to take action against the manufacturer of the watercooling component at fault. But if it's user error, then you're basically screwed lol.

[Zyndo]

2 minutes ago, CardinalHunter said:

 

So can I just get a 1080 ti FE from any manufacturer or is it recommended for a noob like me to get one from evga for its warranty even though as far as I can recall I don't remember even evga covers the warranty liquid-cooled cards

the founders edition cards are all made to specification and then resold by individual manufacturers. they will all be identical in every way as these specifications are set forth by Nvidia. As far as warranties go, there is no breach of warranty for simply removing your cards included cooler and replacing it with something of you own desire provided that doing so has not irreversibly damaged the card or cooler in any way. they are, in fact, DESIGNED to be taken apart, serviced (or modified) and then reassembled. If this was not their intent they wouldn't put so many handy screws all over the place and would just solder the entire thing into one large brick.

the only way you will void your warranty is if you do something incorrectly during the process and user-error causes physical damage to the card. this would also apply to things that you are supposed to do and forget to do. for example lets say that in the process of switching coolers you forget to put a thermal pad in the necessary area and it causes some VRM to overheat and die, killing your card. Whilst it wasn't caused by a direct action you took it WAS caused by a direct inaction you took, and thus, will void your warranty.