Upgrading my GPU - need waterblock advice

Russ

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 14, 2005
Messages
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Well I've had my GPU for a long time (7800 GTX), and I'm thinking I will be upgrading it shortly (mostly to play Bad Company 2, and Starcraft 2 and Diablo III in the future).

I will be keeping the same loop I've had for a while (I believe it's in my sig, pretty typical Storm block and Laing D5 pump, Swiftech 220 Radiator (2x120)), and just upgrading the GPU waterblock (currently it's a MCW-55).

I bought all this stuff 3-4 years ago, so those are the versions I have.

My question is, what sort of full-GPU blocks are out there for ATI, and how much is it gonna cost?

I'm tired of chip-only water blocks, when I had just the ramsinks on my 7800 I had major overheating issues, even at stock speeds (my case is a gigabyte Aurora, 120mm fan intake and 2 120mm fan exhausts in the back (the radiator is mounted on the back of the case where those 2 120mm fans are). I had to take the side off my case and have a 4th 120mm fan blowing directly on the ramsinks (all my fans are Yate Loons btw).

All my issues went away when I started leaving that fan blowing on the ramsinks, so I definitely don't want to leave them passively cooled when I upgrade, which is why I have held off on upgrading (I don't want to have to buy another full card waterblock a year from now).

I am debating between getting a cheap card (4870 or 5770) or going all the way (5870 or 5850). Are there full card waterblocks that can cover more than one of these cards?

What would you recommend I buy?
 
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I got the Danger Den Summit block, it will cover both the 5870/5850, and goes for a respectable $80-90.
Kept my 5870 at 1.35v vcore running 1070/1275 with a i7 920 at 4.0ghz through one 3x120 rad just over 50C under load.
I think most of the blocks are priced pretty close together, except dual gpu ones, even for older cards. So it's more cost effective to buy one for a card that you plan to use for a longer period of time, unless you're looking at the used market.
 
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