liquid cooling video cards

[TimMyMac]

The Title pretty much covers it. I've been looking at watercooling systems and I've noticed that watercoolers like Thermaltake's Tidewater only cool the GPU itself, wouldn't the memory have problems with not being cooled?

 

[Modular]

Short answer: yes.

The active cooling solutions on most cards also cool the ram chips. Most aftermarket water coolers also supply heatsinks for the ram chips which should definitely be installed.

 

[Bateluer]

Yes, you do.

There are water blocks that cover the RAM as well, but they are usually pricey and can only be used on that specific card they were designed for.

 

[TimMyMac]

so basicly if your going to do a water cooled video card Kit's airn't going to cut it, your going to have to DIY it for the most part?

 

[Bateluer]

Well, the Tidwater will do a decent job of cooling most video cards, but you need to make sure you get decent RAMsinks.

You would get better cooling configuring your own WC DIY system though, even it would cost more.

 

[HardWarrior]

No, the RAM doesn't have to be cooled. DDR3 can operate and relatively high temps without a problem. As it is, most people who water-cool their video cards just slap some RAMsinks on and proceed from there. If, however, you WANT to water-cool your VRAM, and have the surface area in your rad to exchange the extra heat, that's fine too.