Skinnee Labs - GTX480 Block Round-Up (working thread)

[gmat]

Agreed, sorry if I confused anyone, but I meant 7°C on the entire loop would be important for me, especially if the loop included an i7.

If the GPU temps is higher, it doesnt mean the water temp is higher ! 7C more on the GPU wont affect other component temperatures, actually could be the water is even cooler due to less efficient heat transfer from the waterblock. Dont mix up the component temperature and coolant temperature...
Actually the flow restriction will affect more seriously the rest of the loop.

In a GPU only loop, maybe/maybe not. I haven't seen any Fermi blocks not able to keep a thrashed GTX480 sub 60° and a GTX470 sub 50° (depending on ambient of course)

And i have yet to see any significant difference in GPU overclocking using room temp watercooling, be it 40 50 or 60C... You have to go chilled or subzero for that.

[skinnee]

And i have yet to see any significant difference in GPU overclocking using room temp watercooling, be it 40 50 or 60C... You have to go chilled or subzero for that.

Air to water on the GTX480 has lots of OC headroom.

[Vetalar]

Air to water on the GTX480 has lots of OC headroom.

yep. fried mosfets already told us about that

[gmat]

Air to water on the GTX480 has lots of OC headroom.

What i mean is, do you reach the thermal limit on this chip ? This has not happened on GPUs yet (for conventional watercooling), usually at room level temperatures the OC limit is reached long before the chip overheats or throttles down (the VRM cooling is a separate issue).

[Systemlord]

What i mean is, do you reach the thermal limit on this chip ? This has not happened on GPUs yet (for conventional watercooling), usually at room level temperatures the OC limit is reached long before the chip overheats or throttles down (the VRM cooling is a separate issue).

That GTX 480 has been to hell and back, I'm not that shocked that it happened. Could have been the quality of the mosfets or maybe the mosfets had poor contact with one of the water blocks for a period of time. All I know is those mosfets were deep fried!

- Systemlord

[mk-ultra]

What i mean is, do you reach the thermal limit on this chip ? This has not happened on GPUs yet (for conventional watercooling), usually at room level temperatures the OC limit is reached long before the chip overheats or throttles down (the VRM cooling is a separate issue).

its not only about thermal limits, cooler core means higher stable oc

[gmat]

The 480 air cooler is made so the card almost reaches thermal limits at stock clocks.. i doubt there's any headroom on air

its not only about thermal limits, cooler core means higher stable oc

That's the problem, so far with the cards i've had, on straight watercooling the temperature didnt change the OC limit (again as long as the card doesnt reach thermal problems). And from what i have seen that limit only really moves at sub zero temps...

[mk-ultra]

The 480 air cooler is made so the card almost reaches thermal limits at stock clocks.. i doubt there's any headroom on air


That's the problem, so far with the cards i've had, on straight watercooling the temperature didnt change the OC limit (again as long as the card doesnt reach thermal problems). And from what i have seen that limit only really moves at sub zero temps...

well or course sub-zero is another world, but on mine the other i was playing dirt2 with my card OCed as usual, suddenly the game crash. looked at the temps they were way high, turns out i forgot to set my rad fans at 12v, i never had a crash before of after that.

let's go ahead and lock this thread down. not going anywhere anytime soon...

especially with your comments...

[gmat]

well or course sub-zero is another world, but on mine the other i was playing dirt2 with my card OCed as usual, suddenly the game crash. looked at the temps they were way high, turns out i forgot to set my rad fans at 12v, i never had a crash before of after that.

Well yeah as i said, if you reach thermal limits that's entirely different (and maybe the 480's are hot enough beasts to do that ?), and that would of course fall back to the same priorities as for CPUs - but with watercooling i never had such problems on a GPU even when torturing them with furmark and such. I found out CPU's are way much more sensitive to temperatures (and that i can reach the thermal limit on my i7)

[Blacky]

Air to water on the GTX480 has lots of OC headroom.

How much compared to air cooling ? Interested to know I hope you included OC tests with all blocks too ! Anxious to see results !