Need advice about water cooling an R9 270X video card.

Metarch

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Feb 5, 2014
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I'm going to put together a water cooling loop for my PC soon, and I'm intending on hooking both my CPU and GPU up to it. The CPU is fine; my problem is with my video card.

I've been looking around, and there's no dedicated full card water block for the R9 270X. As far as I understand it, I'll need to cool the GPU itself, the VRAM blocks and the voltage regulators in order to successfully cool it without the stock fans.

I've managed to find a solution for cooling the GPU; XSPC's Raystorm GPU block will work, according to their tech support. My questions are;

1) Where are the VRAM and voltage regulators on an XFX R9 270X card, and

2) How can I cool them without integrating them into the water loop?

Thanks.
 
for that card, I really wouldn't bother, as it isn't worth it. I would invest in increasing airflow within your case, so I would look into buying more case fans to get the best ventilation possible, as for the R9 270X, it's a card not really worth getting such good treatment as it will decrease temps, but not so much increase performance (Overclocking is limited to certain point anyways, before heat is a huge factor.). That card will run fine off any air cooler it may have, if you do really want to liquid cool it, you have to think to yourself, 'Is this going to benefit me in the long run'.
 

Hello man

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I have to agree. I would hate to spend too much money on something I ditch in a year to two.
 

Jake Fister

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The previous posts are true, but I've got a Sapphire R9 270x 4GB that I'm planning on watercooling just to make my system more uniform. This is how I'm going about it, EK has a universal VGA block that I'm going to use. The problem with that is that the VRMs and the VRAM can get really hot, so what I'm planning on doing to those is mounting little heat sinks and adding high velocity fans to my intake in the front (which will help just about everything in the case) and getting one of the NZXT Kraken coolers to keep a good airflow across the VRMs and VRAM. Hope that helps! =)

Yes, haters are gonna hate when you try to cool "lower end" cards, but I get a kick out of just doing it. Plus since its a universal VGA block, I can add it to a newer card if I need to without having to buy a new block (or drain my water system to swap blocks).
 

redfox435cat

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Jun 15, 2014
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you nailed it. Water cooling this kind of equipment isn't about necessity, it about exposure to the concept, an experiment and gaining experience. Don't know about you but I can handle a couple mistakes on an 1800 dollar build which is what a 270x would be a part of, I wouldn't want to be learning new skills on a 10+k dollar build which is what an dual titan GTX type system would be coming out to. It does gain performance though minimal. The number one reason outside experience is noise. water cooling is much quieter. small fans are noisy no matter what, so transferring that heat to a single point with larger quieter fans is the big benefit.

So does anyone out there know if the r9 280x cooler will work on the 270x, I've never had either in my hand to rip the heatsink off and see.


 

Jake Fister

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I just used the EK VGA Supremacy Universal block and it fit my sapphire R9 270x great. I just put heat sinks on everything else and stuck a PCIe dual fan under it. It lights up too so it looks pretty spiffy.
 

toolmaker_03

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building a fist build can be overwhelming, but I do like the idea of learning on lower end builds.
https://imageshack.com/i/nholdblocks001j
https://imageshack.com/i/my939system010j
https://imageshack.com/i/nnmotherboard001j
https://imageshack.com/i/nlglowrad005j
I have been doing this for some time now and I have enjoyed all of the builds that I have done.
https://imageshack.com/i/0dpicks001j
https://imageshack.com/i/mvalldone001j
https://imageshack.com/i/f1alldone005j
https://imageshack.com/i/04aix7j
https://imageshack.com/i/0vfi2nJ
https://imageshack.com/i/j6j1srj
https://imageshack.com/i/0fleehj
https://imageshack.com/i/ezPiu5JIj
https://imageshack.com/i/ipfs287aj
and that is only a few of the different builds that I have done over the years, every thing from ugly to nice.
 

CAaronD

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No offence but "Ugly to nice" More like disaster to decent :) No offence! But in my personal opinion, the pump and tubes on the last one doesn't seem to fit there :/ Looks like some gardening tool that decided to invade your PC TBH :p