AX800 XT: Water cool or stock cooling?

SkyBum · Nov 15, 2004, 05:54 PM

Trying to decide if I should put this card on my Exos or not...specs are below, system is still in the boxes for now.

The stock cooling looks pretty decent. Is water cooling this card overkill? The VGA waterblock will set me back another $35 or so and it also adds a bunch of trouble to remove the card later if I ever need to.

I'd be tempted to go stock and change to water later if necessary, but it seems like it will be much easier (and safer) to put it in the Exos loop at the same time I set up the CPU. If I did go watercooling, will the memory need passive cooling, because it seems that the stock heatsink/fan would be cooling the memory to some extent.

I'm kinda on the fence here, what would you do?

CaptinSxb · Nov 15, 2004, 06:03 PM

Are you going to overclock, and what kind of cooling does the case have stock(fans/fanslots)?

SkyBum · Nov 15, 2004, 06:22 PM

Probably will OC to PE speeds but I definitely won't be trying to push it beyond that. Fans on the case are 2 120mm (front and rear) and a 90mm side fan. PSU has 2 80mm fans as well.

riles9262 · Nov 15, 2004, 07:17 PM

The card is so fast already, that I'd just leave it at stock and save yourself a future headache and money now

SkyBum · Nov 15, 2004, 08:55 PM

Guess X-Bit Labs gets the credit for answering this one..... check this quote from their review of the AX800 XT.

Quote:

The cooling system has been inherited from the AX800 PRO, with the same disadvantage – the memory chips are not cooled down at all, although ASUS could have easily realized that. The memory on the AX800 XT is clocked at a higher frequency than on the AX800 PRO, so it just demands cooling but never receives it. Running a little ahead, we should confess that the graphics card we tested would overheat often during our tests as the weather was rather hot these days here. Overheat led to frequent hang-ups which we only managed to prevent by installing an additional 120mm fan to blow at the card from its butt end. The air stream was being cut in two by the card’s PCB and was reaching to both front and back sides of the PCB, cooling the memory chips. We would have been spared the trouble if ASUS had put thermal pads on the memory chips under the cooler’s sole and passive heatsinks on the backside memory chips. Considering the more intensive heat dissipation compared to the AX800 PRO, we think the AX800 XT needs to be installed into a system case with additional air cooling and a well-thought configuration of airflows; otherwise you may find your card overheating too often, especially in summer.

No question now, I'm gonna water cool the card for sure.

refraction · Nov 16, 2004, 03:12 AM

i dont think watercooling will solve the problem of the memory on the card having poor cooling/airflow.

think youll have to sort yourself out a little mod to achieve that

SkyBum · Nov 16, 2004, 06:24 AM

Agreed.

My case should have pretty decent airflow according to the reviews I've seen. The modular/rounded cables of the X-Connect PSU will only help in that department. I'll probably buy some VGA memory heatsinks for the chipset side and see if I can find a heatpipe or something similar for the top side memory.

Anybody have any suggestions or better ideas for cooling these memory chips?

OldBuzzard · Nov 16, 2004, 07:26 AM

When i got my GPU water block from Koolance it also had some heatsinks for the ram. I didn't use them because the power connector on my 9500 Pro covers up one of the chips. If you already have good airflow in the case then these would probably be good enough.

I'm not OCing the 9500, but after a year of running 24/7, the fan was starting to get a bit 'peaked', and when I built my new system I added the GPU cooler.

Since you already have the Exos, it's definately a good idea to cool the GPU even if you aren't going to OC it. Heat is the enemy of electronics, and the cooler you keep the GPU the longer it (under normal circumstanses) will last.