GPU cooler powder coating or painting?

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce' started by EKRboi, Feb 24, 2015.

  1. EKRboi

    EKRboi Guest

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    I am about to put my current rig into a new case and tidy/pretify it up. The scheme is MSI black and yellow. I have 3 "reference" 970s with the "titan cooler". I know how to modify the green LED lighted geforce logo no problem.. a little sandpaper and some candy yellow clear coat. The problem is going to be the 3 silver coolers.

    My thought process is that powder coating or painting just the outside will not be a problem because the outside is not what really dissipates heat. Especially when you have 3 stacked on top of each other. It is the internals of the cooler and the air moving through them that does that job.

    I do intend to water cool this whole rig but that is $1k-ish for another day. For now I would like the GPU's to look "in place". So does anyone have an opinion on whether powder coating or painting is a bad idea?

    FWIW I have "googled" and seen mixed results and nobody really talked about how the actual cooling is done inside he cooler and not on the outside. Obviously an extra layer of paint/coating will be a bit of an insulator. At the same time I would bead blast them down to bare metal so would it really be considered an "extra coat"?
     
  2. IcE

    IcE Don Snow

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    Not a bad idea at all. It's the fins inside the shroud that are doing the work. The outside is irrelevant.
     
  3. Valagard

    Valagard Guest

    If he uses carbon coating and doesn't disrupt the airflow that much it will work just as good, plus will be black and shiny
     
  4. EKRboi

    EKRboi Guest

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    I won't be disrupting the air flow at all. I'll just be replacing the "stock silver coating" with a black power coat or spray paint.
     

  5. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

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    You have access to powder coat this three little pieces? Do you work at a workshop or company that does such things? Because I wouldn't know how to do that besides painting them myself :D

    I guess you won't see any problems with painting them anyway, with powder coating just make sure that all the screws still work and that you don't get it on anything else, as in put the top parts off the card before you do it (I know, obvious, but that's the only problems coming to my mind :) )

    Oh and yes, post some pics once you're done, I'd be curious to see how this turns out whatever method you use.
     
  6. EKRboi

    EKRboi Guest

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    I don't have access to powder coating equipment or know how to do it (well.. i know how it works so I do in theory I guess :kermit: ) but I have a buddy who works at a shop that does it.

    The new case (Corsair Carbide SeriesĀ® Air 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case) and ONE of the Corsair (AF140) fans came in today so I tore down the old rig, cleaned everything up and put it in.

    I had already sleeved the 24pin ATX extension and the 8 and 4 pin CPU power extensions. The 6pin PCIE extensions I ordered turned out to use 20ga wire.. 2 steps smaller than what my PSU wires are so I'm not going to use them. I've ordered some molex pins to make my own wires and use the connectors from the crappy extensions. So the GPU power cables are not sleeved yet unfortunately. :cry:

    I have to say that I'm questioning the need to do anything with the GPU shrouds now.. they really don't look out of place in there (Crappy ASUS SLI brigde is temporary, Snazzy Nvidia SLI bridge OTW) If I intended to keep the GPUs air cooled I know I would have them powder coated but I wanna water cool this beast probably around the end of summer. So even though my buddy will do it for "cost".. why waste the $$.

    I have 3 twin packs of Corsair SP120 quiet edition fans on the way to replace the rest of the 5 fans and then I am going to paint the white rings yellow to go with the scheme.

    Sorry for the cell phone pic, the gf is outta town and has the good camera with her. Ill try to get some better pics tomorrow when she gets back. That photo doesn't really do it justice.

    [​IMG]
     
  7. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

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    Sounds reasonable. No need to mess with the current coolers if you're going to replace them with waterblocks anyway. And if he works in a shop that does it for money, how much would he charge you for it?

    I like the sleeved cables, that works nicely! Are you getting that LED sli bridges? I'm not sure, does that shiny bridge have yellow led in there?
     
  8. EKRboi

    EKRboi Guest

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    Yep, the SLI bridge with the LED one (Nvidia shop URL). It is the same green color as the "GEFORCE GTX" on the cards in that pic. I didn't even bother sanding and painting those.. The green doesn't bother me like I thought it would so I wont need to mod the SLI bridge either. I tend to over think things in the planning phase of most projects. :bang: Oh well, better to over think it than under think it!

    As for the powder coating, he said he thought they would normally charge $35-50 per shroud, plus a few dollars a piece to bead/sand blast them and was going to do it for $10-15 a piece for me if I blasted/sanded them myself. So it's not like it is expensive.. powder coating is fairly cheap, but that is $45-ish I could put towards some fittings for my custom loop.

    Got the rest of the fans in today, so I'm off to paint some Corsair fan rings!
     
  9. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

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    Oh well, it's still 30-45$, so it's not nothing, but ultimately your choice. But I'll guess the led bridge will work out fine. I wish they'd offer them in different colors (of leds), because I would have no clue how to mod such a thing.
     
  10. EKRboi

    EKRboi Guest

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    I agree, multiple colors would be nice. I saw a post somewhere of someone who modded the "GEFORCE GTX" on his cards (it is what gave me the idea of modding the shrouds in the first place). It just uses a white LED and the plastic or whatever the letters are made of are colored. He took the shrouds apart and removed the lettering and sanded the color off and then used a colored clear coat (candy clear) to make them the color he wanted.

    Since the "GEFORCE GTX" will be gone once I end up water cooling them I will likely end up modding the SLI bridge to black/yellow instead of black/silver.

    EDIT* GEFORCE GTX logo colour change on Titan <-- there is the post I was talking about.
     

  11. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

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    Thanks for the link, those pics there look pretty decent. How much work people put into their rig's looks, sometimes it's just amazing.
     
  12. AsiJu

    AsiJu Ancient Guru

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    - nvm -
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2015
  13. EKRboi

    EKRboi Guest

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    NP. Agreed, I kept seeing more and more photos of awesome looking builds and that is why I am working on mine now.. This is the first time I've ever put any effort into a build. Usually it is just "throw it in the box" and that's it.

    Build update: Got the rings painted and installed. When I went for paint the best match to the MSI yellow was a Rust-Oleum Enamel paint. They turned out fantastic, but man that stuff took nearly 2 days to dry (says 48hr on can). Was a total test of my patience.

    [​IMG]

    I'll probably do a "photo shoot" with a good camera once I'm all done. Just waiting on molex pins to get here so I can make and sleeve the PCIE power extensions. Based on another 540 case build I saw I think I'm going to remove the 3.5 HDD holders on the bottom of the case and replace with black painted Plexiglas.. or black plexi if I can find it to clean up the bottom.

    Then that will be it for likely many, many months. I've got a $900+ shopping cart of water cooling stuff sitting at performance-pcs.com mocking me when I visit their site. PC parts are going to have to wait though :cry: I have some home/yard projects that need to take priority when spring gets here or the gf is probably going to kick my arse... I've been bitten by the custom rig making bug though and I'm really enjoying it. Fortunately for the water cooling parts, while it is a huge initial investment pretty much all but the GPU blocks can move from build to build with me and hopefully last me many years if cared for properly.
     

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