Watercooling. What a difference it makes!

[Crank Larson]

I run a 980Ti with i7-6700 and have recently been thinking about an upgrade. What has been putting me off, though, is that from all the reports I see, even if I dump £1000 or so on a graphics card I am unlikely to see even a 50% speed improvement. That's not value for money in my book.

My main issue (and reason for looking to upgrade) was due to E: D losing framerate at places such as geological sites. I'd always assumed it was due to the complexity of whatever E: D was doing, but I happened to spot the temperature of my GPU (which I never monitor) when I quit the game the other day. It was a toasty 92C!

Turns out that all my issues have been due to thermal limiting of the GPU when it is under load. Last night I received my GPU water cooler (which was less than £50). After fitting it, I decided that I may as well look into overclocking now that the cooling is good, and was able to increase core clock by around 5% and RAM by 10%. I used Kombuster to ensure it was still stable (I went a little high with my settings first of all, which was fun ).

Anyway, once I'd done all that it was time to fire up E: D. And what a difference.

I no longer have any urge to upgrade until the new GPUs are at least 100% faster than my 980Ti. I am getting no noticeable frame drops at all, and my GPU runs at a very reasonable 66C under full load.

I have no idea why I left water cooling alone for so long. I've now ordered a CPU cooler. I just wanted to put this out there in case others have similar issues.

 

[James Spartan]

I have a GTX1070 without watercooling but I can confirm cooling is important. With ED, at the beginning I had performance drops as you describe. Since I reviewed the airflow in my case by adding a nice Noctua to bring fresh air on my graphics card I noticed a nice gain in performance stability.
I just compared 980Ti and 1070 performance, they seem to be close and I 'm wondering what settings you're running at in Elite ?

 

[sewerratuk]

I did debate a custom loop for cpu and gpu but just went for an AiO on the cpu and extra case fans. I’m still not sold on the idea of circulating through one hot component into another.
After a bit of tweaking I got the gpu clocked to 2015mhz at about 85 degrees fully loaded. However I am still debating whether it would be worth liquid cooling it

 

[Crank Larson]

Well, I had been running on VR medium as per EDProfiler, with a couple of settings a bit higher. I haven't played with the settings since sorting the card out, but that is next on my list so I'll update once I've done that.

 

[sewerratuk]

what cooler was it?

 

[Old Duck]

FAKE NEWS OP! I just submerged my laptop in cold water, and my framerates tanked!

 

[Crank Larson]

what cooler was it?

This one: http://www.idcooling.com/Product/detail/id/147/name/FROSTFLOW X 120

I've increased my E: D settings significantly with no noticeable drop in framerate (still smooth) and a huge increase in quality. Currently at 1.5x for HMD (which means I don't need AA), textures all on ultra, and most other settings on high. I reckon I can up it a bit more yet.

The water's meant to go inside the computer... Not the computer inside the water...

 

[Ashnak]

Similar story here, although I have to admit my rig pre-rebuild was less than optimal - my PSU was running at the edge of its specification, and the specific type of GPU was known for its bad ventilation. Got a new PSU and put two linked AiOs on the CPU and GPU (alphacool in my case). Got some better CPU OC'ing out of it, and was able to change the GPU from undervolting to overclocking. Oh, and the system now runs much quieter. GPU and PSU fans at full throttle made quite some noise.

Now got the problem of the CPU throttling. In busy locations, frame rate drops and I get small stutters. GPU runs at a comfortable 75% load, while the CPU is at >96%. Time for another thread I think.

 

[Crank Larson]

I increased the settings quite significantly last night (still at 1.5x HMD, but now playing with other settings). I notice a slight framerate drop in stations and sometimes at a geo site. I did a fair bit of driving with the SRV, and that was flawless.

Still playing, but will post an EDProfiler screenshot once I've settled.

I'm still stunned as to the difference this has made. I'd been using a hobbled computer for years and I didn't realise! Should have my CPU cooler today too (not that the CPU ever seems to be under load).

 

[Slowfiddler]

How did you fit it to the GPU? The mounts seem designed for the CPU socket.

 

[Ashnak]

GPU coolers use a special design, and have to fit to your specific GPU (not just chip, but also manufacturer and exact type). For example, here's a video of a guy mounting a GPU watercooler (the original GPU cooler is already removed at the start of the video):

Spoiler

That's an AiO cooler (the pump is in the small bump where the hoses connect to), without the radiator, which only cools the GPU chip. The remainder of the GPU board is cooled passively through all of the remaining metal and the hopefully sufficient airstream through the case. Other coolers for custom loops may have water channels all over the board and cool all of the GPU board - but usually, a custom loop is also quite a bit more expensive than an AiO.

 

[Morbad]

I have an AIO cooler attached to my better 1080 Ti with zip ties. Have a Kraken G12, but it's stupid decorative plate was getting in the way of routing the tubing, so I won't be able to use it without taking a saw to it.

Even for custom loops I prefer GPU only blocks as full cover blocks are card specific and cost about three times as much.

 

[Crank Larson]

How did you fit it to the GPU? The mounts seem designed for the CPU socket.

That'll be because I linked to the wrong one. It's the GPU one from the same range. It came with adaptors that should fit most cards (sold as compatible with the entire NVidia range, pretty much). I'm thinking of getting another one for my other 980Ti, as I have no need for SLI anymore (not that many games really used it anyway), so am thinking of building a second VR machine with my old Rift CV1. It'll be a good excuse to try out a ThreadRipper while I wait for the next proper generation in GPUs.