Tom's Hardware > Forum > Overclocking > Cooler and Heatsinks > watercooling graphics card - newbie question

watercooling graphics card - newbie question

Forum Overclocking : Cooler and Heatsinks - watercooling graphics card - newbie question

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hi friends!

i am planning to buy a new pc and a friend of mine sells me his no longer needed water cooling components (from aqua-computer-systems).
so i considered to buy a x1950xt, because you can get cheap cards with horribly bad air coolers; if you exchange it with a liquid cooler the card's price/quality ratio grows greatly.

however, my friend has an universal component to cool the gpu of a graphics card. so my problem now is: how important is it to cool the ram and the mosfet/vram? as far as i am concerned it is not necessarily important to cool these parts even though there are many liquid cooling systems for the complete graphics card.
right now i am furthermore not sure whether i should stick with the x1950xt, because i do not know how hot the memory/mosfet becomes if not cooled (except case airflow). i know there are some kits for passive cooling those additional components; should i buy these, then? or is it all only for OC freaks?
tests showed that the 8800gts is cooler, but maybe its air cooler is of better quality?

or are those times over when it was enough to cool the gpu only?

what is your advise? should i
a) buy a complete graphics card block (95$ ... probably no chance to make any use of it when i buy a new card/pc)
b) throw the graphics card out of the cooling cycle and cool it normally
c) remove the cooler and liquid cool the gpu? not caring about the rest of the card?
d) remove the cooler, apply my liquid cooler onto the gpu and buy additional heat sinks (which probably can be reused when i buy a new card/pc)

PS: i am not going to OC my graphics card

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I would do d) because the RAM cooling kits can be had for less than $40 and airflow around the GPU may be limited with a WC setup. If your case has great ariflow, then I would consider trying c) and going to d) if there were any stability issues.

Reply to Rugger

my case is a TT eureka (http://www.tt-germany.com/product/Chassis/fulltower/eureka/vc8000swa.asp#), whether airflow is great, i do not know.

Reply to dps_kane

That's a pretty sweet looking case. If money is an issue, then I'd try c) and stress test the graphics to check for stability. If no issues, then I would run c) until I had some extra cash to get the additional VGA ramsinks. If you have the extra money, then I'd go ahead and get the ramsinks for the added cooling.

Reply to Rugger

thx for advise

i have the money, but i want to save a much as i can ^^
i think i will test it then, first. depending on the results i will visit a close shop and buy whatever i need :-)

Reply to dps_kane

You're not the only person that likes to keep hard-earned money. :wink: Sounds like you have a plan - good luck.

Reply to Rugger
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