360mm Radiator for 4 Components?

[MiRai]

I've run into a new problem while on my watercooling journey, and my GPUs (on air) are not getting enough airflow in my new chassis. Two GPUs in SLI are hitting high 70s/low 80s while under ~65% load, which is pretty unacceptable. So, I've decided that I am going to put them under water, as well. Here's the dilemma...

I have a HWLabs Black Ice SR2 360mm multi-port radiator , and I'd like to use it to cool down a 5960X, as well as three TitanX GPUs—all overclocked. Now, from doing tons of reading about watercooling over the years, I've gathered that the basic rule of thumb is to usually have 120mm of radiator per component you have in the loop, but I don't exactly have that luxury. The spec sheet of my radiator shows that it should be able to properly dissipate up to 1500W of heat, so, my question is...

Do you think I'll be alright?

For those who haven't been sorta-kinda following my other threads/posts in this forum over the past few months, here are some additional details:

• There is no room for any additional radiators—360mm is all I can fit (In Win S-Frame), which is why I went for a slightly thicker model.
• I'm using the XSPC D5 Photon Pump/Res combo
• 1/2" OD tubing
• 3x CoolerMaster JetFlo fans in a pull setup for the radiator
• CPU voltage when OC'd is < 1.3v
• The highest water temps I saw when stress testing just the 5960X in the loop was < 34C (after 8+ hours), was 30-32C while idle.

Now, I don't have an exact number of watts that I'm going to be pulling, but if I had to estimate, I'd say ~1100W with everything overclocked—I assume I'll be okay because of this, but I'm just trying to make sure. I'm estimating this based off of what my UPS was telling me that I was pulling from the wall while testing the TTX GPUs in 3-way SLI on an OC'd 4930K during a few runs of Firestrike Extreme (it was ~1000W).

I've also already gone ahead and ordered the parts to put the three GPUs under water (Watercool Heatkiller IV GPU blocks), but if I really have to, I'll just take one of the GPUs out of the mix if the temps are too high for my liking (or if it causes the fans to be too loud due to an aggressive fan curve).

 

[YBS1]

You will not be happy with the results you're going to get with three Titan X's in the loop along with that 5960X under a single 360mm radiator, I'll just say that. My three 980TIs dump a tremendous about of heat into my loop, considerably more than the 5960X.

For reference, when only the 5960 was in the loop my water temps peaked at ~26C, now they peak around 32C, and that's with substantially more radiator surface area than you have. Those cards are going to overrun that radiator IMO.

 

[MiRai]

You will not be happy with the results you're going to get with three Titan X's in the loop along with that 5960X under a single 360mm radiator, I'll just say that. My three 980TIs dump a tremendous about of heat into my loop, considerably more than the 5960X.

For reference, when only the 5960 was in the loop my water temps peaked at ~26C, now they peak around 32C, and that's with substantially more radiator surface area than you have. Those cards are going to overrun that radiator IMO.

Well, that's not good news.

The parts I ordered today aren't going to ship until tomorrow, so I can always just cancel one of the blocks and the 3-way bridge, and then get the 2-way bridge instead.

I guess I might have to do that. :\

 

[aigomorla]

its not 120x1 per component... its 120x1 per 150W of heat.

1100W of heat... you would need sufficiently 8x120 radiator surface area @ 1.5gpm flow.

 

[MrTeal]

What kind of noise levels are you willing to accept? I've cooled 1000W using a 2x120mm Swiftech AOI before and 800W using a Corsair H80i, but it was hardly silent. Die temps were high (105C) with around 35C ambient, but a large part of that was interface limited as the heat was being generated by only 324mm^2 of silicon, which won't be an issue in your case.

Keep in mind an AMD 295X2 can pull 500W and the cores are cooled by a single 120mm rad with nowhere near 1.5GPM of flow, so you're probably looking at ~400w or so of dissipation through the single fan rad in that case.

 

[MiRai]

Alright, so it seems like I'll have to pull a GPU out of the mix for now.

I decided to run the CPU and GPUs under 100% load to see what my watts from the wall were, and they were < 850W. It's also highly unlikely that my system will be anywhere near that load during normal use, as I have the CPU for video/rendering work, and the GPUs for games (and I generally cap my FPS), so they'll never both be under heavy load at the same time.

I guess I'll find out next week what this is like, but it sounds like I'm going to have to invest in a giant Case Labs chassis and strap a ton of 480mm radiators to it with multiple loops in order to keep things ultra cool. :\

What kind of noise levels are you willing to accept?

I really wanted to go water so that I could keep my noise levels down, and if the fans are too loud with three components under water, then I guess I'll just keep the thing facing the cold outside air until I can upgrade to something more proper.

Keep in mind an AMD 295X2 can pull 500W and the cores are cooled by a single 120mm rad with nowhere near 1.5GPM of flow, so you're probably looking at ~400w or so of dissipation through the single fan rad in that case.

Very true. However, I'm hoping I don't need to run the fans at 80% to keep things cool.

 

[MrTeal]

Alright, so it seems like I'll have to pull a GPU out of the mix for now.

I decided to run the CPU and GPUs under 100% load to see what my watts from the wall were, and they were < 850W. It's also highly unlikely that my system will be anywhere near that load during normal use, as I have the CPU for video/rendering work, and the GPUs for games (and I generally cap my FPS), so they'll never both be under heavy load at the same time.

I guess I'll find out next week what this is like, but it sounds like I'm going to have to invest in a giant Case Labs chassis and strap a ton of 480mm radiators to it with multiple loops in order to keep things ultra cool. :\


I really wanted to go water so that I could keep my noise levels down, and if the fans are too loud with three components under water, then I guess I'll just keep the thing facing the cold outside air until I can upgrade to something more proper.


Very true. However, I'm hoping I don't need to run the fans at 80% to keep things cool.

Under load the 295X2 was only 1 dB louder than the stock Titan X blower.

Honestly I think you'll be fine as long as you're flexible with your expectations. If you're pulling 850W from the wall, you're probably looking at <750W dumped into your loop. With a single 360mm rad you won't be keeping your water temps <10C over ambient with reasonable noise, but 20C might be fine. If you're ok with that, you might find it not as objectionable as you think. Your temps even fully loaded should still be a lot better than the 85C you'd see with the stock blower.

 

[guskline]

Get a bigger case for another 360 mm rad minimum or cut back to 2 gpus. Too much heat in the loop.

 

[MrTeal]

I just ran a quick check by disconnecting the fans on my 480 and two 420s and blocking the openings. That just left my Coolstream XE 360 with three Swiftech Helix 120s I forced to run at 100%, with the pump around 0.8GPM. Running 4 threads of Prime95 and Furmark I was pulling 940-986W, and my GPU core temps stabilized at 68 and 65C while the CPU package was 77C.

 

[MiRai]

Get a bigger case for another 360 mm rad minimum or cut back to 2 gpus. Too much heat in the loop.

I'll most likely be looking to get a CaseLabs Mercury S8 in a few months.

I just ran a quick check by disconnecting the fans on my 480 and two 420s and blocking the openings. That just left my Coolstream XE 360 with three Swiftech Helix 120s I forced to run at 100%, with the pump around 0.8GPM. Running 4 threads of Prime95 and Furmark I was pulling 940-986W, and my GPU core temps stabilized at 68 and 65C while the CPU package was 77C.

I'm guessing that I'm going to have to keep my machine on the floor and pointed toward the cold outside air to keep things cool without the fans making a ton of noise. I guess if it's too bad I should maybe look into adding in a second, external radiator for the time being, because I'll be able to use it in the new chassis. Hell, maybe I'll just get two more for a total of three (because that's what I'll be using in the new chassis), but is a single D5 Photon enough to push water through 1080mm of radiator? /shrug

Also, Performance-PCs is so backed up since the New Years weekend that it's unlikely I'll get my blocks this week. Just more waiting.

 

[aigomorla]

with the introduction of thermaltakes core x9 i really dont think case labs nor a mountain mods is worth it anymore.

For the price of 1 caselabs, you can have 2 x9's stack them as they are modular cases designed for stacking, and have an awesome cooling potential.

The Core X9 can be mounted with 120x4 radiators which both mountain mods and caselabs have a hard time doing.
And if you want white, its wont cost you an arm or leg for it.

 

[MiRai]

with the introduction of thermaltakes core x9 i really dont think case labs nor a mountain mods is worth it anymore.

For the price of 1 caselabs, you can have 2 x9's stack them as they are modular cases designed for stacking, and have an awesome cooling potential.

The Core X9 can be mounted with 120x4 radiators which both mountain mods and caselabs have a hard time doing.
And if you want white, its wont cost you an arm or leg for it.

Wow... At first glance that's exactly what I was looking for. I liked the Mercury S8 because of the flat-mounted motherboard, but was disappointed because it only handled 360mm radiators when I was looking to move to 480s, but the Core X9 solves that. Unfortunately, it looks like the only option is just a window on the side of the X9, so unless you leave the side(s) off you can't get adequate airflow to the radiators you place at the bottom? It looks like there are vents on the bottom of the chassis to suck air in, but of course I'd want it like the pictures where the radiator/fans are mounted on their side so that people can see them.

I could fit two 480mm radiators on the top, and then one on the side, which is going to be plenty for my four components. I guess it's time to start pricing things out--I'll open a new thread with a new set of questions when I figure out what I'm doing.

 

[MrTeal]

Wow... At first glance that's exactly what I was looking for. I liked the Mercury S8 because of the flat-mounted motherboard, but was disappointed because it only handled 360mm radiators when I was looking to move to 480s, but the Core X9 solves that. Unfortunately, it looks like the only option is just a window on the side of the X9, so unless you leave the side(s) off you can't get adequate airflow to the radiators you place at the bottom? It looks like there are vents on the bottom of the chassis to suck air in, but of course I'd want it like the pictures where the radiator/fans are mounted on their side so that people can see them.

I could fit two 480mm radiators on the top, and then one on the side, which is going to be plenty for my four components. I guess it's time to start pricing things out--I'll open a new thread with a new set of questions when I figure out what I'm doing.

Just be prepared for its size.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37915001&postcount=9
With mine, I run the two radiators on the top as exhausts, and the front and side rads as intakes.

 

[moonbogg]

OP, I had two 360 rads for my 3930K and two 980TI's and while the two rads were "enough" they didn't produce ideal results. The CPU was being effected by the heat dumped from just two of those cards. I had to add a third 360 rad before I was happy. That's an entire 360 rad per component and it took that much before I felt my water cooling adventure was a real success and gave me the temps I thought I should have. Even then, 3 quads would still be better by a couple degrees I think. I suggest an X9 case and 3 quad rads for 3 titans and a 5960x.

 

[MiRai]

Just be prepared for its size.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37915001&postcount=9
With mine, I run the two radiators on the top as exhausts, and the front and side rads as intakes.

My body is ready, but my wallet is not.

OP, I had two 360 rads for my 3930K and two 980TI's and while the two rads were "enough" they didn't produce ideal results. The CPU was being effected by the heat dumped from just two of those cards. I had to add a third 360 rad before I was happy. That's an entire 360 rad per component and it took that much before I felt my water cooling adventure was a real success and gave me the temps I thought I should have. Even then, 3 quads would still be better by a couple degrees I think. I suggest an X9 case and 3 quad rads for 3 titans and a 5960x.

Yeah, I'm just going to leave the build as it is right now and wait until I get a Thermaltake Core X9 to make any changes. At that point I may move my 4930K system over to the S-Frame because I'd hate for that chassis to go to waste, and I'm sure the OC'd 4930K could benefit from 360mm of radiator.

Although, I am tempted to get two of the Core X9 cubes and just stack my two systems, and then maybe sell off the S-Frame. Who knows... /shrug