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Air Cooling vs Liquid Cooling for single GPU

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  • Water Cooling
  • Components
  • GPUs
Last response: in Components
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June 3, 2014 9:53:03 PM

I recently decided that I should look into adding coolants into my rig to stabilize the temperatures and reduce the noise of my gpu, and decided on liquid cooling my single Radeon 7970.

However, my friend convinced me that I should utilize the liquid coolant for my CPU and invest in after market fans for my GPU. I can't liquid cool both because there would be no space for both.

A couple of questions then. In this particular situation, when considering cost and effectiveness, would adding more fans into my case do me more justice than adding an entire liquid cooling kit?

If so, then what brand of fans are quiet and fast?

More about : air cooling liquid cooling single gpu

June 3, 2014 9:54:12 PM

What case do you have?
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June 3, 2014 9:59:10 PM

Go with liquid cooling for the gpu since AMD cards show a weak point in real clock rate under load that can only be stabilized fully with liquid cooling.
Just get a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO with a extra 75 airflow fan.
Moderate speed side and front fans blowing air in across your motherboard, hard drives, video cards With higher speed top and back fans sucking air out to accommodate.
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June 3, 2014 10:00:06 PM

damric said:
What case do you have?


I have yet to buy a case, but I'm looking into the BitFenix Shinobi Black Steel. Or maybe the CM 690 II Advanced
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June 3, 2014 10:02:09 PM

iron8orn said:
Go with liquid cooling for the gpu since AMD cards show a weak point in real clock rate under load that can only be stabilized fully with liquid cooling.
Just get a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO with a extra 75 airflow fan.
Moderate speed side and front fans blowing air in across your motherboard, hard drives, video cards With higher speed top and back fans sucking air out to accommodate.


Is it a general rule of thumb to liquid cool AMD cards because of that particular weak point?
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June 3, 2014 10:05:14 PM

Well it is not completely needed and some of them come with very nice air coolers that get the job done but it would my best recommendation to liquid cool the card if you have to choose.
What cpu are you going with?
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June 3, 2014 10:08:56 PM

iron8orn said:
Well it is not completely needed and some of them come with very nice air coolers that get the job done but it would my best recommendation to liquid cool the card if you have to choose.
What cpu are you going with?


I'm not looking to cool my CPU as fixing my GPU's temperatures are my top priority ( can't even watch anime without the emergency fan going off at 96 C) but the one I'm using is the one that came with the computer I bought, which is the AMD Phenom II X6 1055T @ 2.80 Ghz
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June 3, 2014 10:10:58 PM

o boy... that sounds bad. did you recently buy the card?
That cpu is junk for gaming under 4ghz.
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June 3, 2014 10:13:06 PM

TallOne123 said:
damric said:
What case do you have?


I have yet to buy a case, but I'm looking into the BitFenix Shinobi Black Steel. Or maybe the CM 690 II Advanced


If you want a great case for cooling, check out the HAF XB and HAF XB EVO. It's only natural to have the motherboard horizontal :D 
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June 3, 2014 10:20:20 PM

damric said:

If you want a great case for cooling, check out the HAF XB and HAF XB EVO. It's only natural to have the motherboard horizontal :D 


A system unit made horizontal????? First time I've seen something like that. Pretty neat but unless I'm missing something, why don't I see space for a power supply to fit into that case?
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June 3, 2014 10:22:47 PM

iron8orn said:
o boy... that sounds bad. did you recently buy the card?
That cpu is junk for gaming under 4ghz.


I did recently buy it off a friend. I got ripped off a bit, but buying a new case and adding coolants was a problem I was bound to run into eventually. Better get it done now than later.

Ehhh, the CPU was never really bottlenecking my gaming performance THAT much. Maybe its because I'm a pretty casual gamer, but there's never really been a problem with my CPU.
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June 3, 2014 10:45:40 PM

Well your biggest concern is your card temp and not bottle necking atm.

Take the side panel off your case and see if the temp improves from to much heat building up in your case.

Your friend may have burned up the thermal compound and if that is the case it very well may be damaged.
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