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[mkenyon]

I'm just going to do liquid cooling sometime in the near future. I've run out of cards to upgrade to, so it's an inevitability (until GK110 comes out next year). I found a guy locally that could probably help me out, too...I have pretty much zero experience with liquid cooling.

We've been waiting for you.

If you have Skype and a webcam, I could walk you through it all step by step. Could do it by voicechat too. Available on gchat/mumble/skype as well for picking out parts. Let me know, and I'd love to help out.

 

[sk3tch]

We've been waiting for you.

If you have Skype and a webcam, I could walk you through it all step by step. Could do it by voicechat too. Available on gchat/mumble/skype as well for picking out parts. Let me know, and I'd love to help out.

Awesome! I'll hit you up when I'm ready. EVGA has to release the blocks for the Classifieds, first...and I need to re-fill my gaming budget...but I will definitely reach out to you for assistance...because yeah, even buying the parts has me HELLA confused.

 

[scogoth]

sk3tch you're gaming triple 120hz right? How many 680s is enough to get 120fps (mostly bf3). I'm thinking two or three 680 classifieds when the waterblocks come out or one 690 classified with water block.

 

[Hawk269]

Awesome! I'll hit you up when I'm ready. EVGA has to release the blocks for the Classifieds, first...and I need to re-fill my gaming budget...but I will definitely reach out to you for assistance...because yeah, even buying the parts has me HELLA confused.

Mkenyon's help was amazing when I went with Watercooling my rig. It is actually pretty easy to do (of course I say this after I did it). Biggest challenge is ordering all the parts you need and also ensuring that you have enough space for all the RAD's. If I remember correctly, you have 4x680 Classy's, so that is going to take some serious RAD support in addition to cooling your CPU.

With that in mind, you are going to need a hefty Case to house all those RAD's to support your 4 cards and CPU. But you can also look into External RAD's as well and run the water lines out of the case into these external RAD's.

Regardless of what you choose, there is no one better than MKenyon to guide you. Once you go water, you never go back.

 

[sk3tch]

sk3tch you're gaming triple 120hz right? How many 680s is enough to get 120fps (mostly bf3). I'm thinking two or three 680 classifieds when the waterblocks come out or one 690 classified with water block.

Yup, BenQ XL2420T/X. I'm actually not at 120 FPS on the reg. with this setup. Probably around 90-110 FPS (which is enough for the extra fluidity of 120hz) - depending on map, player count, network conditions, etc. I mostly play Conquest Large so it's 64 players, big maps. But my GPU usage is only around 70% per card.

Been working through some things on various other forums and it could be a combination of things: being CPU bound, bad drivers (NV Surround), or GPU scaling.

I haven't done a ton of testing for the CPU bound thing (I mean, c'mon - what do I do if that is it? It's 6 cores and 4.5GHz+), but I did try 4.5GHz, 4.8GHz, and 4.9GHz and my results regarding utilization are about the same in game (no discernible benefit). The rest just comes down to NVIDIA (NV Surround, GPU scaling).

For BF3 MP, I recommend 3 cards now. They haven't optimized 4 (you probably gain about 15-20% performance in BF3 MP). But I can only speak to 5760x1080. Results may be different at other resolutions.

Mkenyon's help was amazing when I went with Watercooling my rig. It is actually pretty easy to do (of course I say this after I did it). Biggest challenge is ordering all the parts you need and also ensuring that you have enough space for all the RAD's. If I remember correctly, you have 4x680 Classy's, so that is going to take some serious RAD support in addition to cooling your CPU.

With that in mind, you are going to need a hefty Case to house all those RAD's to support your 4 cards and CPU. But you can also look into External RAD's as well and run the water lines out of the case into these external RAD's.

Regardless of what you choose, there is no one better than MKenyon to guide you. Once you go water, you never go back.

Nice! Yeah I am excited for the next step. Will probably not be for a month or two. I have an NZXT Switch 810 which is supposedly pretty good for WC...but I'd be willing to switch if needed.

 

[Salamndar]

OK for the people who own an EVGA GTX 680 FTW SLI setup and have issues with cards temperature.

I found the solution for you...........

There seems to be a flaw in the design of the HSF bezel as usually nVidia cards tend to have a deeper bezel around the fan of all their cards.

Check the fan in all these nVidia cards :

The old 9800GTX

The Trusty GTX 285

The Hot very hot GTX480

The Good old GTX580

Now this shallower bezel around the fan allows for a pocket of air for the fan to breath air from when 2 or more cards are stacked together.

Now with EVGA GTX680 FTW, EVGA made a huge mistake by making the bezel totally flat from the tip to the toe of the card.

Take a look at the card

Yes totally flat and that's totally wrong.

I use 3 EVGA GTX 680 FTW and have seen horrifying tempratures on the top and midle cards.

Ranging up to 96c for the mid. card and 84 for the upper card in a room with ambient temp. of 25c.

I some how managed to improve that by doing the following:

Got myself some small nice felt pads like these :

took 4 pads of them and used 2 on the lower card and 2 on the mid card to raise the fan of the upper cards a little and emulate that air pocket that nVidia do.

" Pardon me for the dust, I live in a desert city and I clean my PC once every month and it is still not the time to clean it. "

Any way as you can see from the pictures I add an 800 RPM 14" Fan to insure a good stream of fresh air.

Now the temperature never goes above 75 for the mid card and 71 for the upper card.

 

[sk3tch]

I didn't know you were still getting pretty deep into the 70C range - you realize that the thermal throttle point for Kepler is 70C? So, basically, your cards will start downclocking after 70C. This is precisely why I dumped the FTW+ 4GB. They are HOT cards. Mine ran cooler than yours, but it was still unacceptable because my reference EVGA GTX 680s performed like 8C better.

I honestly think the FTW+ 4GB cards are garbage - especially when you can spend $30 more (each card) for a Classified which is leagues cooler.

 

[Salamndar]

True, I want to reply the thermal paste and see if this helps.
Might water cool them in the future but since they are not reference design I'll be forced with a universal GPU block.

 

[n0n44m]

anyone else tried the new voltage "unlocked" bios'es for the 670/680s ? they allow cards with no overvolting option (pretty much every card out there except for Lightning/Classified) to run the voltage at 1.212 instead of the default 1.175

the guys who found this method used some HEX editor to edit the bios'es, and can also edit stuff such as power limits and thermal limits

I flashed the Gigabyte 670 one from this OCN thread on my Gigabyte 670s, with nice results

2nd card is still the limiting factor for my SLI overclock, but I can now run both at 1273 core and 3802 mem synchronized instead of having the 2nd card lag behind at 1230 core ... so about a +40 increase in core speed for that card (daily overclock)

just did a quick run with the 2600K at my daily 4.8 GHz, http://3dmark.com/3dm11/4075412 ---> +600 GPU score

I'll try to figure out the limit of each card later this week, and see whether asynchronous clockspeeds offer better results than this limited synchronized overclock



also took some better pics of the rig some time ago !

 

[sk3tch]

also took some better pics of the rig some time ago !

Dayuuum...that is one clean setup. Real nice work!

 

[Salamndar]

anyone else tried the new voltage "unlocked" bios'es for the 670/680s ? they allow cards with no overvolting option (pretty much every card out there except for Lightning/Classified) to run the voltage at 1.212 instead of the default 1.175

the guys who found this method used some HEX editor to edit the bios'es, and can also edit stuff such as power limits and thermal limits

I flashed the Gigabyte 670 one from this OCN thread on my Gigabyte 670s, with nice results

2nd card is still the limiting factor for my SLI overclock, but I can now run both at 1273 core and 3802 mem synchronized instead of having the 2nd card lag behind at 1230 core ... so about a +40 increase in core speed for that card (daily overclock)

just did a quick run with the 2600K at my daily 4.8 GHz, http://3dmark.com/3dm11/4075412 ---> +600 GPU score

I'll try to figure out the limit of each card later this week, and see whether asynchronous clockspeeds offer better results than this limited synchronized overclock



also took some better pics of the rig some time ago !

Orgasmic !!!

 

[mkenyon]

Regardless of what you choose, there is no one better than MKenyon to guide you. Once you go water, you never go back.

I'm blushing, honestly!

Nice! Yeah I am excited for the next step. Will probably not be for a month or two. I have an NZXT Switch 810 which is supposedly pretty good for WC...but I'd be willing to switch if needed.

Pun intended?

But seriously, you'll probably have to look at a high end case designed for watercooling. Mountain Mods, Danger Den, Little Devil, or Case Labs. Going to want some serious hardware for that. I'd venture you're looking in the realm of $1500 for all four GPUs and CPU. $100 a block adds up quick!

also took some better pics of the rig some time ago !

Your build pushed me to buy an R4. I hope you don't mind if I steal some of your ideas wholesale. Went with the Arctic White, going to wrap the front with the white Di-Noc. This is for an air build though.
----------------------------------------------

I will be updating this thread Sunday evening, and properly with all of the ladders.

Though I've shared these elsewhere, some final pics from my build:

 

[sk3tch]

Beautiful. Be proud, mkenyon!

 

[n0n44m]

no time to seriously overclock anytime soon, but it was a pretty cold night so I opened the windows and quickly did this run



P17321 - 2x Gigabyte GTX670 (1322&1292Mhz core/3815Mhz mem, with 1.212 Vcore bios) - i7 2600k@5.1Ghz - 16GB@1866 - ASUS P8Z68-V PRO - n0n44m - CPU, GPUs & board watercooled - Link



tried to run Heaven 3.0 afterwards with these settings but it crashed at the dragon statue

still I noticed that GPU stability is much better with lower temperatures (cores were around 35 to 37c during this run) ... I'll have another run at the end of the year when it really starts to freeze

and just for fun, daily setting (1250/3750 on GPUs and 4.8 on CPU) still scores P16829


-----------

@mkenyon : cool! just make sure to take it easy when modding the front panel; disassembling is easy but everything is plastic so be very careful putting the screws back in ...

 

[Salamndar]

Here are some pics for the GTX 680 FTW 4GB naked before applying some new thermal compound.

Over all, I didn't like the quality of the HSF at all ! might water cool the cards later this year.

 

[mkenyon]

Those reference coolers are so loud. They have you constantly battling the 70C OC wall too. Water or ridiculously good air cooler on Kepler seems like a requirement for enthusiasts.

 

[Salamndar]

I am thinking of water cooling them, with some EK supreme hf VGA with bridge!
But still can't figure out what is the best way to cool those GDDR5 and MOSFTS.

I have been searching the web and found people that use copper based heat sinks on them.

 

[mkenyon]

Could sell em and go with Classies for a full waterblock.

 

[Salamndar]

Could sell em and go with Classies for a full waterblock.

That could be a little too hard for me to do.

ANy way, EKWB has a nice universal GPU block, I could use 3 of them to cool the gpu and some nice copper heatsinks on the Vram and power reg.

 

[Alo81]

Hey posted this in the Screenshots thread but was directed here. Hoping to get some help.

I'm trying to overclock my GPU. It's a GTX 570. Whenever I up the voltage, the GPU clock starts to fluctuate during the benchmark. Okay whatever. Then I keep the stock voltage and start upping the memory clock a bit until it seems reliable. Then I bump up the GPU clock a bit and everything seems okay. Then when I bump any of the three up, the GPU clock starts fluctuating again during the benchmark, starting at around 825, then cutting in half, then back up, back down, and at some points down to 1/4th of the set GPU clock.

Does that mean I'm pushing it too hard, or is something just messing up with it? I'm attaching a picture of Precision X so you can see what I mean. Look in the lower left and you can see the graph keeps flopping up down up down up.

 

[Maels]

Just bought this new system. My favourite part is the $40 case.

P16398 - EVGA GTX 690 - 1200/3200/135% - 3770K @ 4.5GHz - 12GB @ 2133MHz - ASUS P8Z77-V PRO - Maels - H100 - Link

I'm going to mess around with it in a few hours and try to break 17k, I think I might have a 5GHz+ 3770 plus my 690 still has a few clocks of breathing room.

edit: So a few hours have passed...I just barely got my 17k! I had to squeeze tiny GPU Megahertz and a fat 200 out of the CPU to do it. I think I'll revert down to my earlier clocks for a comfy and stable 24/7.

P17051 - EVGA GTX 690 - 1230/3213/135% - 3770K @ 4.7GHz - 12GB @ 2133MHz - ASUS P8Z77-V PRO - Maels - H100 - Link

 

[Noaloha]

P8688 - HD7970 DCU2 - 1125/1575/stock - 3570K @ 4.6GHz - 8GB @ 1600MHz - Sabertooth Z77 - Toodles - H100 (2xNF-F12) - link

New to this, so the tinkering I've done amounts simply to doing a 'follow-these-steps!' CPU clocking guide and then pushing the three sliders to the right in CCC Overdrive for the GPU.

Question about my driver for the GPU because I'm a little puzzled. The 3dMark results page tells me that my driver (8.921.5.0) is not approved, which I understand happens with newer drivers that have yet to pass an authentication process through FutureMark.

However, from Googling this I've noted that the driver is pretty old. The latest driver available on the AMD site is 12.8.

If I go to CCC and try to update drivers, I don't seem to get anywhere and it tells me that the software is up to date. Am I missing something? Do users need to be more proactive with driver updates and manually find/install them? I'm used to just letting things autodetect when updates occur.


EDIT: Oh, and with respect to the 3dMark results posted, should I be aiming for more oomph out of these components (for a day-to-day 24/7 profile I mean, not any kind of cruel high-stress set-up)?

EDIT2: Huh, I just noticed another odd thing. On the results page that 3dMark provided it only calculates my Processor speed at 1600MHz, the idle clock. Is that just an oversight on the data-taking process (ie. it measured the speed before or after the CPU was put under load) or does actually it indicate that, during the bench, the processor was still running on it's 1.6GHz clock speed? I can't see that being true! It's weird that it isn't displaying the 4.6 speed though.

EDIT3

Man, driver numbers confuse me, haha.

So I updated GPU to driver 12.8 (using this guide for clean installation). Ran 3dMark again:

P9456 - HD7970 DCU2 - 1125/1575/stock - 3570K @ 4.6GHz - 8GB @ 1600MHz - Sabertooth Z77 - Toodles - H100 (2xNF-F12) - link

Better!

Weirdness continues though. The driver on the linked page says it is now '8.982.0.0' (so what was the 12.8 driver that I downloaded from AMD?) and the Processor speed is still 1.6GHz (I supposed this must simply be because I haven't manually locked my core speed?).

And a celebratory and somewhat vainglorious pic for personal posterity,

 

[vilmer_]

Santa aka purolator just delivered a new gtx 680!

P9789 - Asus GTX 680 DCUII - 1084/1502/stock - 2500K @ 3.3GHz - 16GB @ 1600MHz - ASUS P8P67 Pro - vilmer_ - CM212+ (air) - Link

 

[scogoth]

First run with new cards at stock. BIOS got reset so CPU is stock too

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4303822

 

[electristan]

P9497 -Sapphire HD 7970 - 1150/1860/1.175v - i7 920 @ 3.77Ghz - 8GB Transcend aXeRAM DDR3 @ 1753Mhz - ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 - electristan - AIR - LINK

Decided to try using MSI Afterburner since Sapphire TriXX has been acting up by forgeting to load the right voltage numbers on boot causing games to crash.

Good fist impressions, i like that it has the temp monitor in app and seems to be layed out better, but i had some tinkering to do to get get overclocking unlocked and working, it would net save my setting for some reason.

using UnofficialOverclockingMode = 1 in the MSIAfterburner.cfg didnt work for me om amd 12.8 drivers so i had to

1. turn off MSI Afterburner
2. install Asus GPU Tweak (req. reboot) and run.
3. unlock overclocking in Asus GPU Tweak.
4. turn off all auto start stuff in Asus GPU Tweak and close it down
5. fire up MSI Afterburner and presto its unlocked

god i love PC tinkering

 

[thabiz]

P11242 - 2x eVGA 570 GTX SC - 797Mhz/1950Mhz/stock - 2600K @ 4.5Ghz - 8GB Gskill Ripjaws DDR3 @ 1600Mhz - Asus P8Z68-V - thabiz - custom loop - link

 

[sk3tch]

Added another little touch to my system.


(click to enlarge)


(click to enlarge)


(click to enlarge)

Project details here: http://1pcent.com/?p=123.

I'm still #1 fastest if mkenyon would ever update the list (giving you crap - I know it's a PITA!). Link to post.

P27584 - 4x EVGA GTX 680 Classified - 131%-100-400 - i7 3960X @ 4.8Ghz 1.48v - 16GB Mushkin Redline 993997 @ 2133 - Asus Rampage IV Extreme - H100 - Link

 

[Smokey]

Too bad you ruined the pics with the Corsair H100 cooler facing the wrong direction!! That bugs me lol

What are temps like

 

[sk3tch]

Too bad you ruined the pics with the Corsair H100 cooler facing the wrong direction!! That bugs me lol

What are temps like

Ha..what's wrong about it?

Temps are awesome. The Classifieds are the way to go for air cooling. When I push 1.3v (via EVBot) I max out at 68C during BF3 MP. At normal voltage it's 62C tops.

 

[scogoth]

P14843 - 2x EVGA GTX680 FTW - 1126/3354/stock - i7-930 @ 4.322GHz - 24GB @ 1656MHz - ASUS P6X58D Premium - scogoth - Noctua NH-D14 Air - link

Thats as far as she goes..... CPU is really holding back my physics and combined score. Had it up to 1.4v and still didn't want to go any higher.

 

[golem]

P10109 - EVGA GTX 670 - 1115/3704/stock - i7-3770k @ 4.8ghz - 16gb Patriot Viper @ 1600mhz - Asus P8Z77-V LE+ - golem - H100 - Link

 

[Stop It]

Bump because of the new AMD 12.11 drivers. It gave my little 7850 powered rig another 1000 points. Should be interesting to see people with 79** cards and how they are improved by this new driver.

P8293 - Radeon HD7850 2GB - 1274/1451/1.231 - 2500k @ 4.8Ghz - 8GB RAM @ 1866Mhz - ASRock P67 Extreme 4 - Stop It - Zalman CNPS 9500A - link

 

[mkenyon]

Well, I think I've mustered all I can out of these bad boys for now. I'm not even tempted to put my benching RAM back in (allows me to push the proc to 4.9ish), as my motherboard won't flash to PCI-E 3.0. That would be a bit of a bottleneck normally, but also my motherboard only supports 16/16/8, which means one of my cards is severely bottlenecked. Think I'll wait till Haswell comes around to see if I want to make the jump. Otherwise, the UP7 and 3770K is looking really tempting right now.

P18364 - 3xEVGA 670 4GB - 1188/3096/stock (eff you kepler) - i7 3820 @ 4.3GHz - 16GB @ 1600 - Gigabyte G1 Assassin 2 - Michalius - Super fancy stuff - Link

Some computer porn for folks that haven't seen it:

Also put my rig up on a competition EK is having on CooledPC, would love some votes!

 

[scogoth]

disable one of those 670s, I want to see 2x 670s vs 2x 680s with an ancient processor.

I'm getting closer and closer to benching. Everything is up and running smoothly with all GT fans and this weekend should drop to 5C outside, good time for a 1.5v run


Me on left you on right

 

[mkenyon]

Will do tomorrow

 

[scogoth]

God damn windows 8, I can't get 3Dmark to run. It crashes when trying to run a test with a DX error....

 

[Salacious Crumb]

God damn windows 8, I can't get 3Dmark to run. It crashes when trying to run a test with a DX error....

Using stretched instead of centred fixed that for me.

My scores are pretty much exactly the same as Win7 except for the physics score which is about 1000 points lower, strange.

 

[Logical Disconnect]

Same here with the physics score, not sure what the deal is. I get about 15,780 with 2 GTX 670 (slight overclock) and 3770K @ 4.5 GHz, a bit less than with Win 7. But slightly better performance in the Heaven benchmark. So who knows?

 

[scogoth]

Tell me no.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1..._FTW_-_AcetalNickel.html?tl=g30c357s922#blank

 

[kennah]

Tell me no.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1..._FTW_-_AcetalNickel.html?tl=g30c357s922#blank

Make sure you get a spare, just in case.

 

[scogoth]

Make sure you get a spare, just in case.

I just got two universal blocks a few days before they announced this. Now I'm debating whether to waste more money.

 

[Spl1nter]

Tell me no.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1..._FTW_-_AcetalNickel.html?tl=g30c357s922#blank

No.

 

[Crazymoogle]

(stumbles in)

Bless this thread, warms my heart to see there is still an active OC community. And now I know who to go through when I inevitably reach for a liquid cooling solution!

 

[scogoth]

(stumbles in)

Bless this thread, warms my heart to see there is still an active OC community. And now I know who to go through when I inevitably reach for a liquid cooling solution!

Do it! Lots of fun, but a money sinkhole

 

[ViolentP]

P8200 - EVGA gtx 660TI - 980/1502/Stock - i7 3770K @ 3.5GHz - 8GB @ 1866 - ASRock z77E-ITX - Link

 

[beje]

Just tested my rig. These are the results:

P7078 - Sapphire HD 7850 1GB - 1010/1250/Stock - i5 3570K @ 4.4GHz - 8GB G.Skill Ares @ 1600 - Asrock Z77 Pro3 - beje - Closed water (H2O 620) - link

I don't know if I should overvolt the GPU to reach higher core clock. I guess not, as I'm happy with results but... well, you never know.

Edit: with Virtu MVP score ramps up to P9408 (link) but I guess that's considered "cheating"

Edit 2: decided to overvolt and now the card supports up to 1180MHz so here are the updated results:

P7796 - Sapphire HD 7850 1GB - 1180/1250/1,225V - i5 3570K @ 4.4GHz - 8GB G.Skill Ares @ 1600 - Asrock Z77 Pro3 - beje - Closed water (Antec Kuhler H2O 620) - link

 

[SoulClap]

P9964 - GTX 680 - +132/+125/+290 - 2500k @ 4.5GHz (1.35v) - 8GB Corsair Vengeance Low Profile @ 1600MHz - ASRock Extreme3 Gen3 - SoulClap - Thermalright HR-02 Macho
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4659580

 

[mkenyon]

Tell me no.

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1..._FTW_-_AcetalNickel.html?tl=g30c357s922#blank

I like CSQ, so I say yes. I know you're a hater though. SMH.

 

[scogoth]

I like CSQ, so I say yes. I know you're a hater though. SMH.

If I did di-noc would cover the circles.

 

[Irobot82]

I don't have any links to SS's of my OC but I got my 3570k up to 4.2 at 1.240v, ran Prime95 Torture test for 10 mins, never went over 70C. Also had my 7950 at 1100 core 1425 Mem and ran Kombuster, never went over 73C. I love my rig.