Hi all, over the last weeks I have been asking various questions about how to cool my 2 X 8800GTX, they idle at 60C, not good, but as I have been told that is normal.
Now.... me not being a normal person decided to do something about it.
I have a watercooled PC already, system details below, so I decided to add the two 8800GTX to the system..... Not as easy as I thought.
Finding what size Thermal pads to use was a nighmare, turns out to be 1mm, so fixed them to blocks and a bit of thermal paste to the mix as well.
Had to be careful screwing down the cards to the blocks as they tend to bend a bit on one end.
Only problem with the ZALMAN block is the hose connectors are in the middle of the block, not on the outside like EK and a bugger to get to, ended up having to fit the hoses to the cards then fitting them into the case, not an easy job and if you use to big a hose clip they get caught on the screws on the Northbridge, and cover the PCIE card release clip, after several attempts got clips, hoses and cards in right position.
Also had to be careful with the Northbridge, its very close to the top Graphics card so the Hose clip has to exact, or you either hit the card, or cover the SATA sockets.
Next problem is I have 1x 240mm Radiator, and with the cards running so hot, I decided it might be best to add another double Rad, or they would be receiving the water direct from the CPU and Northbridge.
What I have done is... Pump to 1st Rad........ then to CPU block........ then to Nothbridge Block........ then to 2nd Rad.
2nd Rad to 1st 8800 GTX........ then to 2nd 8800 GTX........ the back to the resevoir and it all starts again.
As I said the idle on the cards was about 60 - 63c, now the idle is 40c on both cards.
Thesed cards are SLI'd, so the top card was always a little hotter 2-5c
I have constructed two rough graphs below, not expert at this.
*****MY SYSTEM*****
PSU.....XFX PRO-850W Core (because it has 4 x 6pin PCIE dedicated Plugs)
M/Board..... Asus M2N SLI Deluxe
CPU.....AMD Athlon 62 x2 6400
Memory.....8GB Corsair DDR2-SDRAM PC2-6400
Graphics..... 2 X 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 (not clocked) YET
3x Hard Drived nothing special on SATA
*****WATER COOLING KIT*****
CPU Cooler..... EK Supreme Acetal
Chipset Cooler.....EK-NB-SB ASus
Graphics Coolers..... 2 x Zalman GWB8800
Rads..... 2 x XPC RS240 with 4 x Zalman ZM-F3 120mm Fans
Reservior.....EK Res 150
Pump.....Laing DDC 1T (with the speed cable)
All piping 3/8 ID 5/8 OD (Miles of it)
1 Ltr ThermoChill Neon Green Coolant
Lastly I must thank Andy at
QuietPC for getting me out a rather large hole.
When one of my Zalman Graphics Blocks arrived one of the pins had broken off, and could not be fitted to the graphics card.
I phoned, faxed, and emailed Zalman, with no luck.
Tried QuietPC and he had them on the shelf, 2 days later all arrived and fitted.
I Hope I have not bored to many of you, just thought I would let you all know how I got over my cooling problem.
Still looking for 2 x EK Blocks to fit the 8800GTX, in my opinion they are better and I could get them even cooler, but like rocking horse £$%!
Thank, you can all wake up now.
Regards
MadBRit