Cooling for Video Cards

[Prim3]

I am looking at doing an AIO for my video card. I don't like it running as hot and as loud as it does. So I have a couple questions:

EVGA ACX cooler on my stock card currently.

1. I do not see that it is actually cooling the ram itself but does have part of what look like capacitors to me being cooled. Should the ram be cooled as well?

2. How effective is the G10 kraken with a cooler and no heat sinks on these components?

3. Should I find heat sinks that will help cool them with the fan that's on it?

 

[MrCaffeineX]

Your best bet will likely be to find some VRAM heatsinks and thermal-epoxy of some kind to fasten them. Depending on your card, it may also be a good idea to add some of those heatsinks to the VRMs or other heat-generating components. The only AIO video card cooler that I have used personally (the Arctic Cooling Accelero Hybrid) came with the epoxy and an assortment of heatsinks for the various components.

Whether or not you can get away without adding extra heatsinks will vary by the card. Insufficient cooling of the additional components could result in instability, poor overclocking, and/or shorten the usable lifespan of your card. Given the amount of money, time, and effort involved I personally wouldn't take the chance on skipping the additional cooling.

A lot of this will depend on your exact card. The overclocking enthusiasts here and on other sites will likely be able to let you know what are considered safe operating temperatures for your video card's components as well as how to monitor them properly.