I just finished my watercooled and first watercooling attempt on the 5970. Ok heres the deal, the gpu temps are outstanding themselves, when doing gears of war tottally maxed out with 32Xaa supersampling,everything all maxed out. Gpu temps are in the low 40's but the vddc are over 80c now heres the fun part: When I do furmark, I do the stability mode, stress 2 gpus at once, gpu temps once again is outstanding, low 30's however OMFG vddc temps wtf over 120+c, 130++C over 1.2v vddc. Even if I reset to factory default speed, the vddc temps are over 80c? wtf? Like I said, GPU temps are very outstanding, vddc temps,phew hot. I think at one time it gotten almost 140c, I had to stop the furmark program asap, gpu temps excellent, low 30's with furmark. I did miss some thermal tape thingy on some stuff but when I looked up the vddc stuff on the card, that area was already covered. I am using the xspc waterblock. oh btw, gow looks outstanding with 32Xaa supersampling. And yes the card have given me less then 25 fps with this game. 32X aa supersampling is very sick quality settings.
I just did 3dmark06 @ 1920X1200 resolution, In benchmark settings all maxed out w/supersampling, maxed out in cc, wide-tent I think its on, gpu @ 978, memory 1.3(5.2 effective), vddc is in the mids, upper 70c. Doing the canyon dragon scene, the airship scene, this scene uses alot of juice, especially maxed out. Voltage is at 1.2v. If I did that with furmark, over 125-140c easy within like 15-20 seconds. Tah,tah gpu temps didnt even hit 30 c , vddc temps stayed under 70c
Ok I did gow again, total maxed out settings, 32Xaa supersampling. Voltage 1.2v, 952(core),1.3(memory) Vddc 70c, gpu 1 31-33 c about, whats interesting is gpu 2 39c quite a bit more then gpu1, is this common on watercooling setups, in regards about gpu1 and gpu2 temp gaps? so I guess furmark is something to stay far away when stress testing the vddc. the gpu is fine, vddc runs piss hot on furmark, phewwww. I am now what it looks like 1.2v, 952+mhz,1.3memory stable. Im give more reports later. going to try crysis if I can even find the damn game.
perhaps double check your thermaltape. on my 5850s, i left the ati baseplate intact but used a zalman vf2000 gpu cooler for the core. as it was a downblower fan, it cooled everything else too. my vddc never went above 80C, even in furmark, and stayed at around 60C in games. core temps were 55C. i know that a 5970 gets hotter because it has two gpus, but with water cooling, it shouldnt get that hot without the heat spreading through the waterblock and to the cores as well. that and the coolant inside waterblocks isnt made to handle more than 105-120C for the most part. so yeah, double check the thermal padding.
Your temps seem fine. Stay away from Furmark... nothing and I mean nothing stress those vddc temps more than Furmark. Not even Crysis full load can get it to 80-90 degrees. My 5970 is also on water.
What water block are you using? i had the same problem with my 5970 so i removed the thermal tape where all the vddc's are and applied ceramique paste on them and it dropped my temps by more then 30c
ok, Ceramic right?? on the vddc??? As metioned before, I used the 5970 razor from xspc. I didnt know if the paste would be ok on them cause I didnt know if I would make any contact, since the tape is there thicker in width.
Had the same issue with my 4890 under water, vddc temps where ****ty high (about 120c) on furmark, on gaming, nothing to worry about.
Mine when stressed usually stay in the 75c range with a OC. You may have to double up on your thermal tape.
Like others have said ignore furmark, not a single game will be anywhere near those temps on the VDDC. However it should never go above 120-125c, it is supposed to downcloack at those temps so no idea how you saw 140.
Mine hit 100 on furmark with the stock cooler, even in a well ventilated case (p193 with all fans). Tempted to watercool it. Is it an easy job to fit the water block?
Actually this is my very first watercooling in any attempt, very first one. Ok this is what I did, I took out the waterblock, and examine the vddc more carefully, I use the thicker thermal tape on the vddc, right side, near the caps, I used the blue tape the one xspc ships with, on the vddc's themselves, I used artic ceramic, on top of it, I use the thermal tape, Dont ask Why I did this, doesnt make sense to use 2 thermals but I did it anyways, not the first time I did it. When its all set and done, guess what folks? Vddc temps are below half to over half to where it was on load. I did furmark and for some reason it only uses 1 gpu, even in multi-gpu mode, vddc runs in the upper 60's, before it would sky rocket to 120+c in matter if mins, or seconds, very quickly it would rise. now its fine, amen. I can get 1ghz, but getting to 1.025 ghz takes more voltage, I am almost near the 1.3v safe limit. Temps are outstanding on the gpu themselves. vddc are much much better then they were before.
Awsome man. Ceramique should be fine on them I use the switch epsilon waterblocks and it's what they recommend on them if you overclock the card, remove the stock tape and apply paste but everyblocm is prolly different. I know it helped my temps a lot
going for a tri-fire setup, wish me luck . not going another 5970, 4 gpu's dont scale well in games and another thing too, I dont want to eliminate couple of my wd raptors, I want to keep all 5 intact cause the 5970 itself is VERY LONG CARD, good god ol'mighty.
