DangerDen 6800 water block

[Ewout_vB]

Hey everyone,

I was looking online for a nice cooling solution for my 6800 GT which I will be getting soon - since most of them easily overclock beyond 6800 Ultra stock specs from what I've heard - I stumbled upon this one from Danger-Den.

The Danger-Den 6800 waterblock

Originally Posted by Danger-Den Website

All copper cooling solution for the Nvidia 6800 series video cards! Cools both the GPU and RAM with just one inlet and one outlet fitting. The only GPU and RAM block that accepts 1/2" ID Tubing

Includes - Complete Block Assembled with Top, Gaskets, and FIttings. Ships with Hold Down Materials, Backing Plate, and Insulating Foam.

Pressure tested before shipment. Please leak test 24hrs upon receipt. Verify secure mount 48hrs after installation. For Reference Only - Tempertures with an A64 chip, Black Ice II, and 6800 Ultra at 475Mhz dropped 30C under load.

Our Price: $124.95 Each

While looking over it, it seemed rather pricey and expensive. And the extravagant advertising of Danger-Den written all over it isn't the best thing either, however they are the only company at this moment selling a full block for the 6800 series with an 1/2"ID option, whilst other companies such as innovatek have versions with 8mm and 10mm tubing.

So far I haven't found any reviews on this product, and just a few opinions on the water-block - most of those opinions being biased.

Does anyone here own one? Or have any experience with these new blocks?

I'm wondering how the weight effects the card, I've heard some rumors that it warps the card due to the weight, but that could be caused by the fact that they didn't attach the waterblock correctly.

Also I've seen no results - overclocking wise - with this cooling solution yet.

Any opinions?

[bigben2k]

Someone posted a picture of it here recently.

It's pricey, but that's because it's a rather large block, since it covers both the GPU and the ram chips. The price doesn't seem outrageous to me (maybe a bit high?!?).

[nikhsub1]

To me, IMO, that block looks like a flow killing nightmare. The cards dont need the ram watercooled anyway, throw some good copper sinks on the ram and get a normal block for the GPU and save a ton of money and some flow.

[Anemone]

Comments around the web indicate that the ram gets quite toasty, though I don't have one yet to be honest. I'm waiting for the pci-e version. The DD 6800 cooler though is also copper which a great many of the coolers for gpu's out there are not.

Using alternative water cooling blocks 6800 ultras are able to see 450-475mhz without using Pelts.

$.02

[jaydee]

Originally Posted by Anemone

Comments around the web indicate that the ram gets quite toasty, though I don't have one yet to be honest. I'm waiting for the pci-e version. The DD 6800 cooler though is also copper which a great many of the coolers for gpu's out there are not.

Using alternative water cooling blocks 6800 ultras are able to see 450-475mhz without using Pelts.

$.02

Possibly just heat from the GPU flowing through the traces to warm the RAM up. Maybe if the GPU was cooled well the RAM would benifit aswell. But anyway nice to see DD come up with new stuff.

[Ewout_vB]

Originally Posted by nikhsub1

To me, IMO, that block looks like a flow killing nightmare. The cards dont need the ram watercooled anyway, throw some good copper sinks on the ram and get a normal block for the GPU and save a ton of money and some flow.

I have some copper ramsinks right now, but i don't have any airflow near my ramsinks - and I don't exactly have room for a fan - so in other words I need the watercooled ramsinks, since right now they are around 80c load ofcourse thats ddr2 on a 9800 pro which should be a little hotter than ddr3 as i understood it?

Either way I really want to watercool my ram as well as the video core.

Using a pelt would heat up the rest of my system, so I'll have to use a pelt on my NB and CPU as well... And again find a cooling solution for my ram.

[aaronspink]

Originally Posted by Ewout_vB

I have some copper ramsinks right now, but i don't have any airflow near my ramsinks - and I don't exactly have room for a fan - so in other words I need the watercooled ramsinks, since right now they are around 80c load ofcourse thats ddr2 on a 9800 pro which should be a little hotter than ddr3 as i understood it?

Either way I really want to watercool my ram as well as the video core.

Using a pelt would heat up the rest of my system, so I'll have to use a pelt on my NB and CPU as well... And again find a cooling solution for my ram.

There is basically no point in water cooling the ram on either a 6800 GT, a 6800 Ultra, a x800 Pro or and x800 XT. The ram doesn't get hot enough to matter. It certainly isn't thermally stressed.

There appears to be no difference on ram overclocks with no cooling and with sinks with active fans. It just doesn't get hot enough to matter. You are talking maximum thermal dissapations of under 2W. DDR3 != DDR2.

You can spend the extra money for the DD block that also cools the ram, but it is all bling for no zing.


Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

[Ewout_vB]

Originally Posted by aaronspink

There is basically no point in water cooling the ram on either a 6800 GT, a 6800 Ultra, a x800 Pro or and x800 XT. The ram doesn't get hot enough to matter. It certainly isn't thermally stressed.

There appears to be no difference on ram overclocks with no cooling and with sinks with active fans. It just doesn't get hot enough to matter. You are talking maximum thermal dissapations of under 2W. DDR3 != DDR2.

You can spend the extra money for the DD block that also cools the ram, but it is all bling for no zing.


Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

What temps are these memory chips rated for?

Because 80C in my opinion is a bit higher - maybe not thermally stressed - but I'll feel better knowing they aren't so close to their thermal maximum.

About the core cooling - it has more surface area then some crappy cheap blocks... so It can't be THAT bad, although the block seems to be pretty thick? :shrug:

[aaronspink]

Originally Posted by Ewout_vB

What temps are these memory chips rated for?

Ta of 65-70 C. Tj of 110C

Because 80C in my opinion is a bit higher - maybe not thermally stressed - but I'll feel better knowing they aren't so close to their thermal maximum.

Your are comparing the aborted DDR2 to DDR3 in which there are significant power differentials. In addition, the cause of the temp on even the DDR2 chips has more to do with local board Ta self heating than with the power of the dram devices themselves. Once the majority of the heat is being removed through water cooling, the local board heating will reduce significantly, which will directly drop the tempature of the dram devices.

[Ewout_vB]

Originally Posted by aaronspink

Ta of 65-70 C. Tj of 110C



Your are comparing the aborted DDR2 to DDR3 in which there are significant power differentials. In addition, the cause of the temp on even the DDR2 chips has more to do with local board Ta self heating than with the power of the dram devices themselves. Once the majority of the heat is being removed through water cooling, the local board heating will reduce significantly, which will directly drop the tempature of the dram devices.

That's true, I mentioned it earlier that i heard that the DDR3 might be a bit lower temps... Alright thanks

But you do agree that this would be better cooling than fan-less minature heatsinks, plus it will be easier to put in the tubing in my case if i have this block, since the barbs are in a different spot.

[aldamon]

Originally Posted by aaronspink

There is basically no point in water cooling the ram on either a 6800 GT, a 6800 Ultra, a x800 Pro or and x800 XT. The ram doesn't get hot enough to matter. It certainly isn't thermally stressed.

There appears to be no difference on ram overclocks with no cooling and with sinks with active fans. It just doesn't get hot enough to matter. You are talking maximum thermal dissapations of under 2W. DDR3 != DDR2.

You can spend the extra money for the DD block that also cools the ram, but it is all bling for no zing.

Aaron, I have to say I agree. I just installed a used Swiftech MCW50 on my 6800 GT. That leaves the RAM exposed with no "heatsinks." I have a modest 80mm fan Vecro'd on top of my pump that points at the RAM and my RAM is overclocked to around 1070. After running RTHDRIBL, the bare RAM only gets to 52 - 55 degrees Celsius according my Compunurse probe. That doesn't seem too hot. I actually have 8 copper RAM sinks lying around, but I don't think I'm going to bother to put them on. My RAM doesn't reach the speeds others have reported, but I don't see RAM sinks performing any miracles.

[quicksilverXP]

Originally Posted by aldamon

Aaron, I have to say I agree. I just installed a used Swiftech MCW50 on my 6800 GT. That leaves the RAM exposed with no "heatsinks." I have a modest 80mm fan Vecro'd on top of my pump that points at the RAM and my RAM is overclocked to around 1070. After running RTHDRIBL, the bare RAM only gets to 52 - 55 degrees Celsius according my Compunurse probe. That doesn't seem too hot. I actually have 8 copper RAM sinks lying around, but I don't think I'm going to bother to put them on. My RAM doesn't reach the speeds others have reported, but I don't see RAM sinks performing any miracles.

It all depends on the overclock as well. The GT has 2.0ns ram, so it wouldn't matter , but I'd imagine for DDR2 as well as anything below 1.6ns ram, a decent overclock would need cooling. For example, I have my 6800 Ultra at 1300 MHz for the GPU, and I can feel the stock heatsink HOT to the touch. Imagine if there were no sinks on them? You'd find most people using ramsinks on their videocards if they plan on overclocking high, unless they phase change. A friend of mine bought both the 6800 and the MCW50, and he was able to achieve higher overclocks with an MCW50 and Frozencpu ramsinks over the 6800 block... it might just be his system though...

[juansolo]

I have one and am in the process of putting it all together. Considering the amount of copper involved and the impressive build quality of the block I don't think the price is unreasonable. Put it this way, I got the 6800GT and the waterblock for far less than a 6800Ultra (which I couldn't get hold of for love or money) and expect to be running at the same sort of speeds when done.

Edit: I've now completed the PC. Results and pics HERE

[bellevegasj]

I was looking at all the posts on water cooling the 6800 graphix card and found this one. Does anyone have any other conclusions other than to just cool the core? I'm about to water cool my system and I was thinking about buying the DD 6800 gpu block but after reading this, it doesn't sound necessary.

Currently I'm running my BFG 6800 GT @ 420/1.1ghz with air cooling and it's perfectly stable. Any idea what I might achieve by water cooling it?

[ferdb]

I cooled just the 6800GT core and got another 25 Mhz out of it over air cooling. My concern was more to get rid of the noise than overclocking though. You should know that the video RAM does get quite toasty so you need some airflow on it or get a block that cools the RAM also like the Danger Den or Innovatek.

[kungfoojesus]

Originally Posted by aaronspink

There is basically no point in water cooling the ram on either a 6800 GT, a 6800 Ultra, a x800 Pro or and x800 XT. The ram doesn't get hot enough to matter. It certainly isn't thermally stressed.

There appears to be no difference on ram overclocks with no cooling and with sinks with active fans. It just doesn't get hot enough to matter. You are talking maximum thermal dissapations of under 2W. DDR3 != DDR2.

You can spend the extra money for the DD block that also cools the ram, but it is all bling for no zing.


Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

How have you come to this conclusion? A guy at the jungle tried to passively cool his ram and WC his core... Well the mistake ended up costing him $400/his 6800GT. If anyone thinks it is safe to passively cool the memory on this card they are foolish. Here's a link to the forum where the guy talks about how he fried his water cooled 6800 GT while passively cooling the memory.

http://thejungle.zforums.net/forum/index.php?msg=3331.1

The dangerden WC block that covers the core and ram will definitely save you some frustration and isn't all "bling for no zing"

ps. the guy rma'd the 6800 after he melted it and donated the $400 to three different charities, then bought another one! he defnitely won't be passively cooling his next 6800

If you don't want to WC the 6800 go with the leadtek cuz it is overclocking to 425/1100 in my rig air cooled and that case is stuffy too.

[Torin]

Sounds like the guy did something foolish to fry his card, and passively cooling the memory wasn't it. It is all bling.... there is absolutely no reason to water cool the ram. Just because some guy fried his card passively cooling the ram, doesn't mean he wouldn't have done the same water cooling it. Unlike the core, RAM will not die just because it gets too hot... it'll BSOD or something similiar.

[kungfoojesus]

So you're saying there's no way the temperature of the memory even matters on the 6800GT when trying to gain performance?

[Torin]

No, I'm saying that the guy couldn't have fried his memory card because it got too hot. There is no cooling that passive cooling can't offer that water cooling can. We're talking the difference is perhaps 5-10Mhz, and that isn't worth the pressure drop or the $125 for the block.

[kungfoojesus]

Why couldn't he have fried the memory?

"There is no cooling that passive cooling can't offer that water cooling can." Anybody will tell you otherwise hopefully.

A difference of 5-10mhz... Where did you come up with those numbers?

Not worth the pressure drop or the $125? Doesn't that depend on the head rating of the pump and several other factors as well? I do agree $125 probably isn't worth it, but that's not what I'm asking or what we're judging at the moment.

[JamesAvery22]

Originally Posted by kungfoojesus

Why couldn't he have fried the memory?

"There is no cooling that passive cooling can't offer that water cooling can." Anybody will tell you otherwise hopefully.

A difference of 5-10mhz... Where did you come up with those numbers?

Not worth the pressure drop or the $125? Doesn't that depend on the head rating of the pump and several other factors as well? I do agree $125 probably isn't worth it, but that's not what I'm asking or what we're judging at the moment.

Lemme back up. The "jungle?" No offense but where did those forums come from??? Ive been on a good amount of forums and Ive never heard of it. Maybe I just missed it all these years :roleseyes: Unless some senior member of a well known forum (like any of the regular guys here) says otherwise, I'd take anything I read from a forum like that with a grain of salt.

As for not needing to watercool the ram I agree with Torin. I dont have a 6800gt but over at ocforums the question is brought up way too many times. The core gets MUCH hotter than the ram. If you get a good block on the core and passively cool the bga chips you can still lower the temps on those bga chips. A good chunk of heat is disappaited from the GPU through the circuit board and traces. If you cool the GPU you basically cool the entire card. Ive only seen like one guy not put any cooling on the bga chips though, so I definitely wouldnt recommend it.
A maze 4 or better yet, a silverprop will cool the GPU better than that huge DD thing. And no matter what pump you have more flow = better peformance on anything in the loop.
So why pay 125$ (well the silverprop isnt too far from it =\ ) to get ok cooling on the core and just a little better performance on the ram, not to mention degrade the performance on your entire loop? GPU OCs are much more benificial so I dont really see how its a choice...

And Ive never heard of anyone frying their ram because it wasnt cooled properly. Even if the heatsinks werent seated properly the card would just over heat and crash, or just clock down and shutoff. A guy just posted on how his 6800gt gainward GS keep crashing because of that, the whole heatsink was tilted and touching the corner of the GPU. It didnt puff a cloud of smoke and die... It just artifacted and wasnt stable.

Either your friends card was just bad or he did something dumb.

[redleader]

Looking at the Hynx website, they list an 800MHz GDDRIII DRAM as useing a little less then 2w. Probably not too much more at higher clock speeds.

[kungfoojesus]

Here's what he wrote to me about killing the 6800GT when I emailed him.

I installed the Koolance block on the core, which meant removing the stock heatsink/fan. I had some ramsinks, but the stock ramsinks were bigger and had a heatpipe, so opted to leave them in place. Since I had installed the waterblock, I no longer had the ducted fan blowing on the ramsinks, but I have good case airflow and figured passive cooling for the ram would be good enough. (mistake number one)

In my experience, ramsinks have been nothing more than window-dressing anyway. Sure they look nice, but they really don't have much heat to deal with, and in the past I have had equal or better overclocking results on most cards with no ramsinks at all as opposed to running them with them on.

To keep it short, I used the nvidia "determine optimal clockrates" utility to initially overclock the card. (mistake number two) It set a rate of 485/1185, and one run of AquaMark later, the card was history. It started artifacting about halfway through the bench, I immediately killed AM and reset the clockrates to default, but the damage was already done. It really can happen that fast: less than 30 seconds elapsed between the appearance of the artifacts and my successfully resetting the clockrates."



Take it for what you will but this guy has been water cooled since 97 and overclocking so I'm defnitely going to take his advice and put a case fan over those ramsinks when I put on my silverprop. I definitely won't be putting that 3 pound dangerden monster on a video card though. Even if it does WC the ram.

[bellevegasj]

I wish that there was a trusted source that compared the GPU blocks, the DD block included. With/without ramsinks and with/without fans on them etc.

What does everyone have their video cards set as?

Currently air cooled my BFG 6800 GT is running at 420/1.1ghz, I do have the side panel of my case off. I'm not sure at what temp the card is running, I'm at work.

[kungfoojesus]

my leadtek is running at 425 1.09 which got me the best scores in aquamark. I can run the core up higher/memory lower and vice versus but the best scores I've gotten were at 425/1.09 so far. The memory on my leadtek doesn't seem to overclock as well as other people's. I think my card has lame memory. It runs without artifacting a bit higher than that but the scores start to drop. That's air cooled with the huge leadtek h/s on it of course. Its all relative to that rig though. Running my CPU stock the card is actually limited and I accomplish very little by overclocking the 6800GT without overclocking the CPU.