240/60 rad options

[Scarey]

Would a 60mm 240 rad cool a 580GTX and 2500K enough for some worthwhile overclocks? Looking at getting the Fractal Arc midi. Toms temps on his X58/6990 setup were great with a 60mm 360 rad recently. Wondering if the 240 would be ok bearing in mind the cooler 2500k.

 

[JesseLactin]

Maybe, maybe not. Overkill for the 2500K on its own, but it may have a delta temp too high for the CPU with the GTX 580 in the loop. I read that the ideal temp for the GTX 580 under water was 60-65 °C, giving you headroom for warm days. I looked up the wattage for your OC'd CPU: 162 W for 5GHz at 1.38V. Holy crap that is cool(20-ish under a Phenom II @ 4GHz), so that won't be an issue at all. It all comes down to the GTX 580's heat output. Don't own one so I can't comment.

 

[JesseLactin]

After a little more research, your dumping about 405W into your loop. 162W from the CPU, and 243W from a stock clocked GTX580. With the XSPC RX240 rad, you would need Scythe Ultra Kaze 3800 RPM fans, which you may not have room for, to get a 7.2 °C delta temp (a little high, but not bad, 5-10 °C is good, 2-5 °C is awesome).

 

[Scarey]

Thanks for the help, much appreciated.

It seems the Arc is more suited to water cooling an X58 CPU, rather than a sandybridge/GPU combo.

Is water cooling a GPU such as the GTX580 worthwhile? I’m assuming the card choice is important. Cooling is only useful if you can overclock the GPU enough to warrant it above air cooling. Does this also mean you would need to source a card that has hardware voltage control, so you can increase the voltage when required? This is also only applicable if a cards processor is deemed to be high overclock friendly. Can anyone answer these questions and suggest a suitable overclock friendly GTX580 that could utilize water cooling?

Still in that water cooled/air cooled decision time.

 

[JesseLactin]

Short answer is YES. Do it. Make sure you get/have a reference PCB GTX 580 though, as a non-reference card is not compatible with water blocks based on a reference design. If you do have a non-reference 580, you can use a universal block like the XSPC Rasa block, so all hope is not lost. Hell, I forgot EVGA makes a card that already has a water block on it. It's in the Hydro Copper II family of cards. Even if you don't get the HC II card, still buy EVGA, they warranty cards EVEN IF YOU REMOVE THE STOCK FAN. no other company will do that. Also, OCing DOES NOT violate EVGA warranty (blow it up and it does though, I think, not sure though)

Edit: 3 GB Hydro Copper 2

 

[Lollipop]

The eVGA hc2 is very expensive tho

 

[JesseLactin]

Yeah, it is, but it comes with a very smexy water block (IMO). Even though it is an FTW card, it's not OC'd. WTF EVGA. I think I if I was you, Hackedoff, I'd buy a normal 580 and water block it, unless you want a 3GB card(non-standard).

Edit: I like this block cuz it has LEDs under the EVGA E logo, and they make the EVGA logo glow blue.

 

[Scarey]

Oooh, looks nice.

Need to find out whether the water cooling enables the card to outperform its air version. Depending on price though, it may inch into 590 teritory... Thanks for the help!

 

[JesseLactin]

I just found out that you can buy the block separately. It's like $150 CDN (block) + $30-ish for the back plate. Both look pretty nice though. I guess it's not that bad if you spent $500 on your GPU. I would probably recommend a 360mm rad, or a 240 + 120 setup. On the forums, someone else used a 360mm rad for this purpose. The guy was running a i7 920 @ 4GHz though, prob more heat than you CPU.

Edit: the EVGA HC2 is a 3GB card, not the reference 1.5GB card. If you just happen to be completely out of your head and SLI in the future, I'd use a 360mm rad in it's own loop. (225W x 2= 450W Nope, 245 x 2 = 490W)

It's actually $19.99 for the backplate on EVGA's website.

Edit 2: found an image