Opinions on Water cooling GTX 480 in SLI

Hey friends,

It's winter in Australia and owning 2 GTX 480's in SLI is quite rewarding, the temps are reasonable and the fans aren't blazingly distracting. I am a pretty happy buyer. When my heater goes on and the room temp gets about 25 degrees c, thats a different story. Watching a blu-ray 70 degrees c, playing Bad Company 2 85 degrees c, playing The Witcher 75 degtrees c, playing Aion 70 degrees c...... Thats with room temps at 25! Imagine the 40+ degree days we are gauranteed to get this year? I HAVE to water cool. I have a Corsair Obsidian 800D case, which is a relief. I know nothing about setting up a water cooling rig. I have decided to go with EK stuff all the way pureley because it looks good and its reasonably priced. Here is what I have decided on so far.

EK-FC480 GTX - Acetal+Nickel
EK-DCP 4.0 (12V DC Pump)
EK-CoolStream RAD XT 240
EK-Reservoir for DCP 4.0

What I would really appreciate, is some assistance with fittings, tubing, coolant and the loop setup. What fittings go where and which fitting are best? Also, what size tubing will I need?A And what size fittings etc etc.

Oh and the thermal grease for a GPU? Any thoughts?


I know you guys will smash this and I am looking forward to your educated opinions.

Thanks

 

i just WC my two GTX480 not long ago, keep temps under rap pretty well, fittings i went with 3/8" barbs and 5/8" clamps just because thats what i had in my perverse so i didnt have to spend more money on fittings, so i went with 3/8" ID 5/8" OD tubing, for coolant i would say distill water because it does the job and some say its the best. with those kind of things its really up to you, my friend went with 1/2" ID 3/4" OD with compressing fittings and i think that doesnt look that good because the tubing look just to big to me and when i was helping him because of my asian hands there i did most of the work putting his loop together and god those compressing fitting were a nightmare.

 

ok. So what do you mean by ID and OD?
Also, if I went with 'EK Perfect Seal Compression Fitting 1/2" ID', with the 'Tygon 3400 Tubing 1/2 ID - Black Tubing', will I require more connecters?

 

inner diameter and outer diameter.
no, the same as normal barbs setup would.

 

sweet. thanks mate. When you say 'setup would', do you mean I will need extra fittings? Or can I do the whole loop with the 'EK Perfect Seal Compression Fitting 1/2" ID', with the 'Tygon 3400 Tubing 1/2 ID - Black Tubing' and maybe some compression barbs at angles if I want or need to?

 

with compression fitting i think the OD is also importance so u need to get the right size tubing for that compression fitting. the only place what i see that you might a angle or an adapter is the video card area, some normal compression fitting are to big and u cant screw it in without the card being in the way. how are u linking the two card BTW?

 

Hey. What are the top pumps for? Is there any chance you could write a quick list of things you need for a single loop GPU watercool setup? that would be amazing

 

Here is a thought and I'm sure much more intelligent people are out there but....according to physics your room will not be any cooler because you have water cooled the graphics cards. The same amount of heat will be produced whether it is water cooled or not. Water is simply better at removing heat from the gpus. The heat will simply travel to the water and then to the air through the radiator...

Or this could just be the ramblings of a mad man..

 

you need a pump a res, blocks, rad, fittings, and tubing.
you will need fittings to match so if you go 1/2inch then get 1/2 inch fittings and 1/2 inch tubing. watercooling is not hard to do. thermal paste use whatever you have for your cpu, i used ocz thermal paste on mine. i use distilled water in mine with swiftech additive but i might just get the piece of silver for my next setup will see.
yes the gpus will put out the same heat but water is better at removing the heat from the gpus.

loop setup on mine is res->pump->rad->gpus->res on this i am cooling cpu also
or you could do res->pump->gpus->rad->res
either way should work

 

i dont think you need a pump top for the DCP 4.0 right as its already have G1/4". doing GTX480 SLI i have pump, res, rad, two block, two Geforce link, and a SLI bridge...because i have my pump allinone with the res and using the EK SLI bridge link i only need 6 barbs for the loop.

oh get the backplate for those GTX480 they look wonderful.

 

The top of your 800d case should fit a 360 rad perfectly, and you will get better temps/more capacity if you want to add your CPU into the loop later on.

 

I have pretty much the exact same thing.

Dual 480's in SLI along with a 980X.

The GPU's sit around 35C idle and 50C under full load constantly, maybe a little higher.
And that's in Winter at the moment. I'm from QLD.

www.pccasegear.com.au has a good range of stuff if you haven't seen them already.

Summer is going to suck, luckly I have aircon on majority of the times so shouldn't be too bad. Although the afternoon sun really hammers my room makes it quite hot.

 

Thanks heaps to all of you who replied. You have healped me greatly. I have a decent understanding of what I need and the loop structure. I'll have pics up when it's done in about a month. Thanks again.

 

So here is my shopping list. Can you think of anything else I need. Are these fittings going to be ok for the whole loop? I notice the tubing may not fit the EK compression fittings. Will this be the case? If so, can you recommend a good 3/8 compression fitting with 1/4 thread? Thanks again.

http://s755.photobucket.com/albums/xx195/ratatatatatatatatat/?action=view&current=cooling.jpg

 

Hey mate. In what order do you have the loop. Thanks.

 

http://s755.photobucket.com/albums/xx195/ratatatatatatatatat/?action=view&current=waterloop.jpg

Do you guys think this diagram is accurate

red: components
blue: tubing
gree: compression fittings (X10)

 

I don't really understand how the res goes in there like that.

Personally, I would drop the res, and go T-Line, but that's mostly personal taste. I find t-lines to be easier to handle.

 

I was going to mount the res with either zip ties or a mountinjg bracket. It keeps it suspended above the bottom shelf on the 800D. Like this

http://www.ninjalane.com/newspost4410.aspx

 

Ok Ok. Here's my second go. i didn't know the pump/res combine as one.

http://s755.photobucket.com/albums/xx195/ratatatatatatatatat/?action=view&current=cooling-1.jpg

 

pump> rad> SLI bridge> res here a pic