Is a GPU cooler worth it?

[Zeta09]

Well,

I am back to bother ya'll once again. This time I am asking you gurus' opinions on the GPU coolers that are out there. I have a gForce 4 Ti 4400 and a Radeon 9700 Pro in my two main boxes. I have the innovatek GPUs and a Swifty MCW50. Since I have them I'll use them but I don't OC the Radeon (shoot, don't know if it is really worth it on that one). Considering it will add to the work of the pump used.

But is there a very distinct difference in water vs. air cooling from the real world exp of your rigs? What do you all think?

[Boli]

Silence.

I hated that tiny fan on my GeForce3 so I upgraded(downgraded?) to a heatsink/heatpipe combo.

If these new "airplane" fans are anything as annoying then I'll say it is well worth the money to go to watercooling.

[[-Stash-]]

I was wondering whether it's worth it as well, but I just couldn't be bothered to ask, so I bought a DD GPU block for my Ti4400. I certainly hope it's better than the stock fan that came with the card cos that was as whiny and noisy as hell. Looking forward to somewhat quieter computing.

I’m just fitting the cooling loop back into the case since the filling and leak test seem to have gone successfully, so I’ll let you know if it’s worth it in a few days.

[Monty]

I just put a MCW50 on my GF4 Ti4400 and feel it was well worth it. It's quieter and I've noticed my video to be smoother, especially after long MOHAA online sessions.

[Balinju]

just an idea, if you think that the with water cooling, the gpu would be running at higher temps than with air cooling, you could try to make a pelt on your gpu and get to something serious

of course with the pelt, you would need water cooling, an 80W/120W pelt could cope well for a gpu and you would not need an extra psu.

[shiltz]

unless you plan on seriously OCing the board the waterblock really isn't needed for cooling, seen people OC ti4200 in the 330mhz range from their stock of I think 250 or 275 using the stock heaksink and fan, the main benifit and the reason why I went water cooled with mine is as others mentioned is the noise, those stupid little fans they put in GPU's are to damn noisy and I can't stand the high pitched wine they make, after 6 hours of gaming your eardrums would thank you for going with the water cooling, hehe.

[Zeta09]

I also

am about to put the swifty GPU block on as well. Although I do wonder what it will accomplish now I was pretty excited about it when I first got it. I have a modded Lian Li with 2 side, one top and the standard fans all running to cool the case. I do (to my ears anyway) think that it was pretty quiet with the air cooled chips. I have seen my temps go down on the WC PC from an avg 42C (load) to 36C with ambient temps being 22-23C. I am in AZ as well so it can get hot during the afternoon.

I did not take note of the GPU temps so I will not have a ref point for those but we'll see.

Monty did you take temps before and after the Swifty block? Other than noise what do you think?

[Pheonix]

I think a GPU cooler is worth it; but a northbridge one isn't

[Balinju]

Originally posted by Pheonix
I think a GPU cooler is worth it; but a northbridge one isn't

i don't agree, especially, if you are in a hot country and if you want to overclock a lot and if your nb runs hotter than your water temps, then a nb block would be ideal

[Pheonix]

Hadn't thought about other countries

its usually pretty cold in this country!

[Balinju]

not like here!!! In summer, it's petty damn hot

[[-Stash-]]

Adding an NB block would have added a lot more complexity to the water cooling loop in my setup, so I didn't think it would be worth it. Besides, I had an aluminium P4 cooler around so I took a hack saw to it and, hey presto! a passive NB for a hell of a lot less than that damn Zalman job.





Couple more pictures of the NB.