How to liquid-cool your graphics card in 20 minutes - mcneillween1992

You may not know IT, but the hottest component in your PC ISN't your Central processing unit, information technology's actually your television card.

Today's high-performance GPUs can put out two to threefold the heat of a high-end CPU. That typically translates into enough fan noise to drive you batty patc gaming. (Ready for an upgrade? Check out our skilful reviews along the best graphics cards to choose your following GPU.)

In that location's an easy way of life to solve that problem though: water. OK, it's technically "liquid," because information technology's typically an anti-freeze-like substance, but in the parlance of our times, information technology's water supply cooling.Enthusiasts have long resorted to custom cooling setups to keep telecasting card noise to minimum.

maingear closeup 2 — This Maingear Epic Force uses liquid cooling to keep its four GPU's slumberous and unfriendly. That cooling system is also easily a wonderful in parts.

The problem with custom unfrozen cooling is it's neither easy nor cheap. An EK-brand GPU water block tail end easy cost much a hundred dollars—and that doesn't include the hosing, pump, radiator or reservoir that you'll also need. In the end, custom liquid-temperature reduction a video carte could cost as more Beaver State more than the video card itself, depending on your options.

You don't have to personify Mario

The pleasing news is on that point's an easier alternative—and it doesn't accept a Mario-level of plumbing science, either. If you want to water-cool your two-year-old GPU because you've finally worked up the courage to risk destroying IT, you can coif it quickly and fairly cheaply.

Rather than full-happening custom liquidness cooling, you can employ off-the-shelf, closed-coil liquefied coolers for the job. For example, NZXT offers its G10 universal square bracket adapter that you use with its closed loop, and Arctic offers an uncastrated kit out for cooling system GPUs.

Like NZXT, Barbary pirate offers a bracket to fits its coolers. For today's how-to, I'll be using Corsair's Hydro Series HG10 A1. It's a $35 antimonial bracket that you could spouse with many a nonclassical Corsair coolers.

Reuse

Corsair's ism with the HG10 A1 bracket is apparently nonmoving in common. The idea is that once you've upgraded to a newer cooler for your CPU (Corsair brand, natch), you just reuse the old one with the HG10 A1 on your GPU. Whereas some designs try to be comprehensive, Corsair's HG10 A1 is actually ad hoc to few favourite GPUs that follow the factory reference design. Extremely modified GPUs from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and the like won't work, as they typically enjoyment bespoke designs.

For my GPU contrive, I used a reference Radeon R9 290 wit. In the worry of full disclosure, I did use a dead Sapphire Radeon R9 290X as a photo and telecasting dummy. Both cards, though, use the same layout and are pretty much physically superposable.

This upgrade is quite easy and can be through in 20 minutes—if you're comfortable building a Personal computer. But there are risks. If you're self-conscious taking apart your PC, or a klutz, or rear end't accept blame if you destroy information technology, don't attempt this.

remove2 — To remove the shopworn cooler, hardly unscrew the screws around the perimeter and the then remove the screws from the tensioner.

To get the stock cooler off of a Radeon R9 290, remove the 12 large Phillips-head screws from the border of the card. Then remove the foursome small screws from the tensioner. I recommend using a friable-color coffee mug or cup to hold screws from your project, sooner than placing them on your work surface, where they testament rove by without a trace.

To remove the stock fan shroud on a Radeon R9 290 or 290X, you'll also need to remove cardinal screws from the I/O partially of the menu.

One time all of these screws are removed, you can with kid gloves separate the PCB from the cooler gathering, applying a trifle blackjack to break out loose the thermal paste. Don't force it. If you can't single out the two, check to take in if you forgot a screw.

guts — Here's what a Radeon R9 290 looks like in pieces. The Altoid tin will cost used to lay in the screws and tiny bits.

Take away the fan shroud

Once you have the cooler assembly off the PCB, you'll also penury to take away the impressionable fan shroud from the cooler assembly. You need to do this because Barbary pirate actually wants you to reuse the stock fan. Some other green touch? The fan would otherwise go into the E-waste bin right? To do this, you'll need to remove the tiny black screws close to the perimeter of the devotee tack. On that point should be six of them.

Now separate the fan sheet from the cooler assembly by lightly snoopiness them apart. To remove the stock fan, turn over the heat sink meeting place and hit the three screws that hold the fan. They're readily visible and form a three-way shape.

fan — A descent Radeon lover attached to the Corsair HG10 A1 cooler square bracket.

Now use the same three fan screws to attach to the fan to the HG10 A1 bracket. Before you do this though, route the fan wiring so information technology testament reach the fan head connecter on the video card. You'll need to basically lay the fan along the bracket and and so set up the bracket on the GPU's PCB to confirm the correct routing.

Once you've attached the fan to the square bracket, install the included black plastic fan shroud included with the HG10 A1. To do this, exercise screws that Corsair included with the kit up.

I inalterable pace in front you attach the square bracket to the PCB is to install the four correct standoff studs to the bracket. Which studs you use leave depend on which ice chest you use; confirmation the manual.

With the bracket set up, you'Re ready to climb up it to the PCB. You may, if you want, attach the cooler's water block OR arctic plate to the bracket out, but it makes for a clumsy affair. The right way to do it is to attach the HG10 A1 bracket to the PCB then install the cold plate.

Remember to remove the plastic tape that protects the thermal pad on the angle bracket before attaching it.

Attach the bracket

Now you're ready to attach the bracket to the GPU's PCB. Before you do that, make a point to remove the protective plastic from the bracket's thermal pads. These pads shuffling contact with the RAM and voltage regulation modules on the placard and help wick heating into the aluminiferous frame. Now simply install the cold denture or piddle draw a blank onto the GPU.

If you'Ra using a new cooler that already has a thermal pad OR energy paste on it, you're good. If you are indeed reusing one, clean the shallow and reapply thermal spread. I recommend ArctiClean for removal of gunked-on thermal paste. Combined word of advice: When you torque go through the cold plate, don't incur too crazy. That is an exposed GPU kernel, and cracking information technology or chipping it means you have destroyed your video calling card. Luckily, on that point is a metal shim around the perimeter that should reinforce the card against damage.

For this project, I decided to test forbidden Barbary pirate's idea that you can just use your old cooler, thus I went with an older H60 tank, which is attached victimisation the thumb screws that come with the HG10 A1 bracket. After you've installed the GPU, brand sure you power up the pump and fan past plugging them into a close header connector on your motherboard. You may too require to go into your motherboard's BIOS and increase the voltage to that power connector. Some motherboards North Korean won't supply sufficiency voltage to run the pump at the correct belt along, which can cause problems.

waterblockon — The last step is to install the cold plate operating theatre water system block.

How does it perform?

Erstwhile I had the card together, I threw it into a arrangement to test. In this case, it was a Core i7-6700K Skylake rig with 16GB of DDR4/2666 and a Kingston HyperX Piranha SSD running Windows 8.1.

I definite to run the scorecard using a worst-case scenario, so I used the infamous Furmark stress test. GPU companies have described Furmark as a "power computer virus." They don't like it.

For comparison, I first ran the Radeon R9 290 with its stock cooler and FurMark hardening to 8x AA. With those settings, I saw the plug-in quickly hit 94 degrees Celsius with its standard cooler. AMD took a lot of flack over the noise of the Radeon R9 290 and 290X card game when first released. I'm not trusted if the drivers or the BIOS on this card reflects those complaints, but kind of than let the card get insanely loud past cranking up the fan hasten, the 290 card I had throttled operation instead. The card's stock speed is 947MHz, just under full encumbrance, IT slowly savage back to 916MHz. I could actually get the card running at its stock 947MHz alfileria, but only with the fan set to far higher speeds.

The 290 and 290X fans, for the record, can sustain so loud and sharp, you won't want to be in the same room with the organisation. I know from premier-hand experience with a multi-GPU Bitcoin mining machine.

Thusly how about the HG10 A1 and the H60? Bad damned good. While I could easily hit 94 degrees Celsius and imag the time speeds bug out to throttle back with the air cooler, the liquid cooler held at 56 degrees Celsius low the aforesaid Furmark charge. Unitary thing I did experience was a black sieve when I let the GPU see the fan speed below freight. Because the calling card thinks it's running a nice chilly 56 degrees all the time, it ne'er increases the fan speed—which, I believe, was the cause of my wreck. You can manually crank the fan speeds exploitation MSI's Afterburner utility.

oncard2 — Urine cooling can subdue even the Radeon R9 290 posting.

Closing

United issue I didn't expect was impartial where that radiator would be adorned. The only alternative for most will be on the bottom of the case OR the case door. Stressful to route it up over the GPU wasn't workable with the H60's hose duration. In a lot of cases, such a setup just won't work. So plan accordingly, as it will be a limiting factor.

The performance may make it worth ditching the case, though. I byword significant reduction in inflame and make noise by going with liquid, and none of the throttling I proverb along air cooling system. For a 20-minute project with a $35 bracket (assuming I had an old liquid cooler), that's smashing.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/423289/how-to-liquid-cool-your-gpu-in-20-minutes.html

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