Are Watercooling kits a good start?

[fourty03]

Hello all..

I am at a stalemate here with oc-ing my system as of now due to the temps..

I have a Thermaltake Dokker case

I have a Strike fan controller 5 1/2 bay with the temp probes..

I also have 4 ultra Kaze fans at it's highest setting mounted as a push pull config .. I also have the coolermaster 212 on the CPU and it seems to do it's job with stable oc at 4.0ghz

My problem is the temps on the GPUs - two GTX 460 1gb in sli (palit - non reference design)

The highest overclock I can obtain is 800/mhz core and 2000 memory due to voltage. When I turn the voltage up and take it to 850 ~ 875 mhz, I get temps about 195F...

I have every available area in the case covered in fans..
Starting with the top - two exhaust fans pushing away from the case, then one fan exhausting out the back. I have two 120 mm fans on the Coolermaster 212, one pushing and the other pulling pointing toward the rear exhaust.

I have a Ultra Kaze fan pulling air in at the side of the case onto both GPUs, and also a PCI slot fan above GPU 1.

I have another Ultra Kaze fan in the bottom next where the PSU goes, pulling air from the bottom into the case, then I have an 80mm in the harddrive cage..

My question is, should I go for a watercooling kit for both GPUs? If I did, what would best suite my purpose? Should I take advantage of the CPU block that comes with it and put the coolermaster 212 away?
BTW, all the fans except the harddrive fans are 120mm

Under full load at the CPU, I get about 120F.. I am just confused in whether watercooling would suite my needs.
Sometimes, the system crashes during under load (due to the GPU i assume?) and it usually happens after overclocking the GPU more than 800mhz
and not changing the voltage..

The first gtx460 (the top one) gets the hottest, so I figure I could order the ek waterblock, and for the second GTX460, I could use
Swiftec's multipurpose GPU waterblock since the second one dosnt get as hot..

Thanks alot guys!


System Specs:
* Phenom II 955 X4 @ 4.0
* Gigabyte 890gpa-udh
* 8gb OCZ DDR3 Ram
* (2x) Crucial C300 SSD
* 1tb Samsung Spinpoint F3
* (2x) Palit GTX 460 in SLI
* 850 watt Kingwin PSU
* 30million fans (actually 11 fans) lol

 

[aigomorla]

the cost to cool your 460gtx, your better off getting 570's.

no joke... meaning... id go gpu upgrade, then go uber expensive cooling on mid tier cards.


Watercooling is a luxury, you only do it once u meet your core requirements.
Putting watercooling on a $200 gpu to make it $300 dollars makes no sense when you can go out and get 570's and have a much better gaming experience.

 

[fourty03]

I can still take take the 460's back ... so would the 570's in sli run cooler?

Would it be worth it? I pad about 380 for both GTX 460 .. and I have it SLI in my AMD system..
I am running a 2d surround as of now, x3 23" samsung 2333t displays..

My motherboard defaults at x8 pcie speeds due to using both PCIe slots. would that be a bottleneck?

 

[aigomorla]

I can still take take the 460's back ... so would the 570's in sli run cooler?

Would it be worth it? I pad about 380 for both GTX 460 .. and I have it SLI in my AMD system..
I am running a 2d surround as of now, x3 23" samsung 2333t displays..

My motherboard defaults at x8 pcie speeds due to using both PCIe slots. would that be a bottleneck?

to be honest it would be almost the same.

But i would get the 570GTX's if you could over the 460.

The 570 is a great card from what im reading on.

And im sure u would get a happier gaming experience on them over putting water on your 460's.

And later on when you have more money, then you could think about watercooling your 570's with blocks like these which also cool voltage regulators, and ram on the card with one block:

But there pricy blocks.. lol
http://www.koolance.com/water-cooling/product_info.php?product_id=2005

Then you would need a pump and rad.. which all adds up.
So you see now why i said gpu upgrade b4 watercooling mid tier gpu cards.

The only time where it would make sense, is IF you already had a cpu loop, and you wanted to add the gpu onto it.

 

[zagood]

Something to keep in mind, those Palit 460s (assuming the black shroud and orange fan) are some of the hottest ones out there. 90C in SLi seems about right...high, but about right.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-460-review/31
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU/...6.167.168.181.169.179.165.160.158.178.174.159

Aigo has some great advice. 570 is Sli will probably be cooler, not by much, but the higher performance will be even more worthwhile.