First time water cooling Help needed

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fattyfatchops

Honorable
May 13, 2012
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10,540
Hi all you lovely peoples,

I have decided that I will need to go the water cooling method after feeling the heat during an intense battlefield session, and as I have never done anything like this before, I am reaching out to all of my well learned friends here at toms,

So, System specs are;
i5 4670k - @ 4.6
MSI gd65 Z87 mobo
Asus DirectCU11 GTX 770 boosting to 1160
Samsung 840 ssd 250g
WD blue 1T HDD
thermaltake toughpower gold 750W
LG Blu ray/DVD combo
4 x 140mm fans
3 x 120mm fans
All wrapped up in the usual Windowed Define R4 Case
running with windows 7

Visuals are through a Asus 27" 3d monitor @ 1080.

a couple of points to add that may or may not help,

Its a gaming only PC, I do overclock, although arent too game to test on my thermaltake NiC F3 cooler, and will want to push to the limit, I will want to water cool my GPU in the not too distant future once I decide if i will be keeping the 770 or going to a 780 as Ultra 3D gaming on a 2g 770 does push a little too far on some titles. Im in Perth Western Australia too so im limited for availability locally.

I have put a small little pack together based on my very limited knowledge and internet searchings,

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=wish_lists&wlcId=231456&action=wish_lists
I would like to go this CPU block instead of the XSPC one though, and if I do can I get away without using an additional pump until I decide to cool the GPU?

So hopefully I can get some pointers or if there is a major failing in something or anything ive overlooked or underlooked then any and all advice is more than welcome :)

Many thanks to all
 
Solution
photonboy
I only mentioned another GTX770 because you listed parts that came to the same price. It doesn't make sense to spend a lot of money which might give you at most a 10% boost in performance when a 2nd GTX770 could have achieved 70% or more.

Sure in the future you'll need more VRAM but this is money you were planning to spend NOW.

There's a LIMIT to how much you can overclock both the GPU and the CPU which isn't that much higher than you are at now. Why not just SAVE that money and put it towards a better graphics card in the future?

As for the CPU, that's going to be great for a couple more years, though again I still recommend the highest stable overclock without increasing the voltage.

I know EXACTLY how good your system is as it's...
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photonboy

photonboy

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Jun 20, 2006
21,567
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I don't recommend 4.6GHz.

A few points:
1) 4.2GHz can be attained without overvolting while also keeping the Intel Power Management intact.

2) It will make little to NO benefit while gaming to run at 4.6GHz instead of 4.2GHz.

3) Water cooling prevents cooling the CPU VRM's unless you can run water cooling through them which can cause overheating problems (I couldn't tell if your motherboard has this ability to attach water pipes. I don't think so.)

4) Water cooling your GRAPHICS CARD is also a waste of money IMO. The cooler is already great, and I don't think you could gain much, if anything anyway.

5) For the COST of your cooling gear, you could get a 2nd Asus GTX770. With your cooling gear you'd be lucky to gain a 5% boost, with a 2nd GTX770 you could get an average of 75% or so in supported games.

Summary:
Basically I recommend a simple 4.2GHz overclock, keep the air cooler, and if you are willing to spend $300 put it where it really matters in gaming with a 2nd GTX770 (or if you don't want SLI, sell your current card and get a GTX780 such as the EVGA780 3GB 967MHz model.
 
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fattyfatchops

Honorable
May 13, 2012
38
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10,540
Thanks Photonboy,

well its like this,

1) I think I managed 4.4 without an overvolt, will reply back on that once i reboot and trial, either way, point taken.

2) now I know battlefield is more CPU dependent than most games but at a 4.4 OC the task / performance manager showed upwards to 70% use, So was just thinking ahead in regards to keeping the same rig for as long as possible, dont want that to max out later on.

3) I would still like to mount a fan or two blowing directly onto the mobo even if I did water cool. Just a little paranoid when it comes to heat and not worried about noise.

4) this is where the panic started as with the case closed I could feel the heat building up during gaming, and when I did take the side panel off the GPU backplate was too hot to even touch for more than half a second ( not sure but that seems a little too warm to me ) . And when i played around with the clock speeds on the card I remember adding an extra 15% onto frame rates, so was thinking that I could hold a higher overclock with water and thus get better FPS.

5) yep, cost was a deterrent for me to watercool. a second 770 would be great in theory but Ive been hitting 1920mb of the total 2000mb of memory and will no doubt run out in the coming titles, so will need either a 4g version or a 780, plus my PSU only has 2 x 8 pin modular connections, it has plenty of 6 pin peripheral connections but ive been told not to use them to power a graphics card.


 
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photonboy

photonboy

Titan
Jun 20, 2006
21,567
13
85,015
I only mentioned another GTX770 because you listed parts that came to the same price. It doesn't make sense to spend a lot of money which might give you at most a 10% boost in performance when a 2nd GTX770 could have achieved 70% or more.

Sure in the future you'll need more VRAM but this is money you were planning to spend NOW.

There's a LIMIT to how much you can overclock both the GPU and the CPU which isn't that much higher than you are at now. Why not just SAVE that money and put it towards a better graphics card in the future?

As for the CPU, that's going to be great for a couple more years, though again I still recommend the highest stable overclock without increasing the voltage.

I know EXACTLY how good your system is as it's basically exactly the same as mine. Seriously, it's a great system so just enjoy it as is. On some of the more demanding games you'll want to TWEAK a bit to maintain a solid 60FPS.

Finally, consider a G-Sync monitor in the future. You'll see what I mean in 2014 when the first one comes out. So may be touch nothing in your system for TWO YEARS, then look into upgrading the Graphics card, the monitor or both.
 
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F

fattyfatchops

Honorable
May 13, 2012
38
0
10,540
I just want to say a big thanks Photonboy,

I was so very close to blowing 400 on a watercooling loop, but after your input I decided to hold off for a little and in that time I realised something very basic that was wrong.
now please dont laugh at the next comment,

I had my 3d monitor playing up with the input and it wasnt going into 3D mode for a while, I decided to do a fresh install of all my nvidia drivers and then realised that I was running an old driver version, and so after updating everything and running battlefield the temps had dropped significantly, the GPU tweak software only showed a 5 degree drop but the actual card to the touch was dramatically different. So all in all, everything is running as it should and water cooling will be something I will look at with my next build IF i decide to go with more of a asthetically pleasing build ( As I do think watercooling loops look the balls )

But for now Im Happy with it all and may just wait till the 8xx series nvidia cards come out until an update.

Again,

thanks Photonboy for the reality check, many thanks
 
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