Hardware Water-cooling the AMD Radeon R9 290X

1.2v should be enough to max the clocks under water even. you would need more exotic cooling methods to push much passed 1.3v anyway.

Only thing that confuses me is with these benches how is the 780 on air faster than this is on water in unigene.

 

The benchmark and setup chosen (1080p) does not in away real way load up the gpus enough with that CPU i'd imagine, did a quick test myself and my 290 non X pulls the same score as a 780 in that benchmark with those settings at stock clocks, I have a stronger CPU (3770 @4.5)

Its all set a bit low to really stress it and so comes down to efficiency of the system and general variance.

 

That's odd because i thought Unigine Heaven Benchmark was made specifically for testing GPU's, as in Accurate results due to 100% GPU-bound benchmarking.

 

don't think you get around Os/Driver overhead anyway you cut it, at such a low resolution despite 8xaa the GPUs such as these aren't having a hard time.

 

72 degrees under load? What card have you got? my reference design one hits 95 under load at stock clocks?

 

That's definitely a good point - it IS the residue in the water itself that's the problem. 100% pure water is actually an insulator, but, just water dripping down a motherboard could collect enough particles to become conductive enough to be a problem.

Where I happen to live, the tap water is pretty clean. Not perfect, but clean enough that you could drink it un-filtered every day and not get an illness because of it. If I lived in an area where a filter becomes necessary, I probably wouldn't wash my parts straight under the tap. It also depends on the part at hand. Modern Intel boards and modern GPUs have some REALLY dense pin arrangements and are pretty sensitive. I'm not sure I'd recommend washing those out even with filtered water.

 

And some people in the third world would think we had lost our marbles if we told them we wash our cars, clothes and our selves in drinking water.

 

It varies pretty drastically from different cities and especially between states. Most cities around my area are pretty safe, but go to Boston... boil the water first, filter it, or get bottled. Boston water isn't poison but I personally don't trust it. As with almost everything in the country, certain areas can be almost entirely different, to the point that it is almost as though you're in a different country. Road systems and internet connections are good examples of this. The roads in the northeast are windy and full of potholes, the roads in the southeast are windy but in good condition, and the roads in the west are almost a perfect grid. MA (where I live) is known to have the worst road system in the country. As for internet, east cost has very moderate speeds (slow compared to Japan or UK), parts of California have GREAT speeds, and midwest you're either stuck with satelite or dialup. The list of differences goes on and on, and the differences are quite drastic depending on where you are. To me, the US, in a cultural sense, is more like 6 or 7 different countries.

 

collecting rain water in a water butt is illegal in several states in the USA - people have been sent to prison for doing it!

 

It would be very puerile if someone made a joke about keeping your back to the wall when in prison or you may find other stuff in your butt wouldn't it

 

Without going into too much detail on this thread just look up "water rights western us" in google (or your favorite search engine). It's a (insert choice expletive here) mess.

Back on topic: I suppose I should be more careful with my suggestions since bit-tech is not a "how to be a pro frozen nitrogen" shop. It is fun to see things that I don't have the money to play with myself though. Me and my curiosity. At least this article makes me think I could go water (or liquid) cooled one day and it'd be worth it. Thanks bit-tech!

 

At the risk of sounding like I'm batting for the green team, why was this watercooled card pitched against the 780 instead of the 780Ti?

The cost of the block alone puts it around the price the price of a standard 780ti, but surely you'd also have to add in the cost of other WC components? It seems the majority of people have jumped ship to AIO CPU coolers instead of full loops, so the majority would have to build a dedicated loop to achieve these results.

Seems like a missed opportunity to match it up with a 780Ti.

 

an AIO and mounting plate would be suitable for this as well

 

it doesn't need water necessarily, just improving the stock botched job and living with 95 and noise is fine for extra performance, this can be done with £5s worth of thermal paste.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-r9-290x-thermal-paste-efficiency,review-32829-3.html

780s also have performance degradation due to heat just not as extreme, but you could equally recommend water for those for best performance.

 

AIO are improving but dedicated water cooling uses would never touch them. You would also achieve worse results than what's doable on dedicated hardware.

 

Nah... You're implying snobbery - I water cooled my PCs for the better part of ten years and have moved to AIOs for convenience. Decent quality AIOs are viable alternatives for everyday use, as are HSFs.

Full loop liquid cooling is a choice, and only really a necessity if you're pushing the limits.