DinoBull

Wow, you are truly a water cooling veteran. Thanks for the suggestions. My CPU AIO cooler uses a 360 rad that is side vertically mounted in the case. I customized it a little with a push/pull configuration with the fans on that since there was enough space. However, for the space the GPU Rad will sit in (top), not enough space for a rad + the push fans + the pull fans. When added up, the height encroaches into the motherboard and AIO tubes for the CPU. I may opt for just upgrading the GPU anyhow. It seems to be more cost effective performance-wise over the small performance improvements water cooling yields in this case.

On paper, the 3090 looks like an absolute beast of a card. And it is: Specs RTX 4070 Ti RTX 3090 Architecture Lovelace Ampere Stream Processors / CUDA Cores 7680 1,0496 Boost Clock (GHz) 2.61 1.70 Base Clock (GHz) 2.31 1.40 GDDR6X Memory 12GB 24GB Memory interface 192-bit 384-bit Maximum Resolution 7680 x 4320 7680 x 4320 Connectivity HDMI 2.1a 3 x Display Port HDMI 2.1a, 3 x DP 1.4a Dimensions 285 x 112 x 42 mm 313 x 138mm Recommended Power Supply 750W 750W HOWEVER: Lovelace architecture is way more efficient with 3rd generation ray tracing cores and 4th generation Tensor cores. As a result, the 4070 ti is able to compute ray tracing and make use of use of its neural graphics more efficiently, giving you more computing power for less electricity. The upshot of this is that the 4070 ti is the more powerful card despite its smaller bus width and memory size. In fact, the 4070 ti is more powerful than the 3090 ti, an incredible statistic that is a testament to the breakthroughs the Lovelace architecture made. Also, it uses far less power than the 3090, on average around 41% less.

This thread has taken a turn from: I'm going to water cool my GPU and I need radiator suggestions TO I might scrap that idea and upgrade the GPU instead for about the same cost Now considering the purchase of an RTX 4070 ti since that is what I was going to spend water cooling my RTX 2080 ti. Better still i'd sell the old GPU for a couple hundred and actually spend less than water cooling the GPU... Thoughts?

I'd likely sell them. The RTX 2080 ti is still fetching $300 - $400 USD on ebay. New they are still crazy expensive! Ive seen them at $1200! Silly when you can now get more powerful cards at $800.

I'm glad I consulted this forum. Last night I was almost ready (aside from the radiator) to pull that trigger. If I do end up water cooling, i'll consider the other pump/res combos.

I do want to experiment with water cooling, but now considering if that money is better spent on a GPU: Satisfaction knowing I squeezed a few more percents of performance out of that GPU with something I built VS Satisfaction that comes with a higher frame rate Hmmm.

Wow, interesting! I mean I knew back when I built this PC that the 9900k was the cpu to go for future proofing at least for 3 to 5 years. That 16 threads really does make a difference.

Currently, I am playing Forza 5 Horizon, No Man's Sky, Defense Grid 2 (I know, it's an oldie, but a goodie), Final Fantasy XIV, Elder Scrolls Online and some VR titles with a Valve Index. My monitor is that lovely Alienware AW3423DW (3440x 1440 @ 120 to 175hz depending on the game). Your advice, though good is now challenging me to think if a GPU upgrade would be more beneficial than simply water cooling and overclocking. It's your fault!!!

RE: Calculators - Agreed. After my response to @UltraMega, I did more of a deep dive as his words did resonate. I compared performance on 3 GPUs with my CPU and yes, there is a large gain in fps for the resolution and settings I typically use. However, this calculation does not take into account the PCIe version. The motherboard in that build is PCIe 3. All the GPUs that would outperform the 2080 ti are PCIe 4. Dropping any of those newer GPUs into that motherboard would definitely experience a bottleneck in bus bandwidth. It really is challenging trying to figure this out RE: Water cooling - My first idea was a full cpu/gpu water cooling loop, but the parts list amounted to over $1200. TBH I hesitate spending that much on a 3 year old PC that would only experience slight performance improvements. So I paired it back to just water cooling the GPU.

According to my research and 2 online bottleneck calculators (cpuagent.com & pc-builds.com), If I dropped a RTX 3080 ti card into that build (wouldn't that be nice), the bottleneck for my system would be anywhere from 5.7 to 21.8% for the 9900k. I realize this is a pretty wide margin. I don't know which calculator is more accurate or even if either is accurate at all. If the bottleneck was closer to 5%, that might not be so bad. The thing is, we don't know for sure if it would be that low. These calculators also don't take into account the refresh rate.

Nice find and good point!

Good point RE: cooling parts life span. All good suggestions on the radiators. Hardware labs also make the Corsair XR5 & XR7 Rads AFAIK. That's why I have the XR5 as a potential on the list. Thanks for the reassurance on the aquacomputer rad. I live in California, which is normally very dry with low humidity anyways. So if I do choose that radiator, It'll likely be fine.

The budget is around $800. That is a soft target as i'm trying to get the highest performance cooling possible. Of course I don't want to go too crazy as this is a 3 year old PC. So it probably wouldn't make much, if any sense to spend $1k cooling a GPU that has been superseded by a couple of generations already. I like the look of the aquacomputer rad. A little concerned that the copper fins are not coated. I know the cooling performance is likely better, but concerned that oxidation will occur and those fins would turn green after awhile. As far as the EK block, upon close inspection the block and the backplate does not have many screws. I have heard a report or two that people have had trouble properly seating this block and experiencing poor performance unless it is seated absolutely perfectly. This is one reason why I chose the Heatkiller block: more screws, larger area of coverage for gpu, memory and vrms.

One of my old builds (The White Kraken (2019) by chrisjmartini - Intel Core i9-9900K, GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic ATX Full Tower - PCPartPicker) is in need of an upgrade to stretch it's life expectancy 2 or 3 more years. I have already decided that upgrading the gpu or cpu doesn't make sense as the board is a z390 and the gpu and cpu are already maxxed out (i9 9900k) for this configuration. Any newer GPU would suffer a bottleneck due to the PCIe version and other limitations. I have been building PCs for over 25 years but have never tried liquid cooling. My intent is to dip my toe into liquid cooling that GPU (EVGA RTX 2080 ti XC Ultra Gaming). The CPU already has an AIO liquid cooler installed that is good enough and should last a few more years. So i'm only considering the GPU cooling loop for now. I want the cooling to be optimized to push the boost clock and memory of the GPU as high as possible. The stock dual fan/heatsink on this card is already excellent, but likely no match for a higher end liquid cooling solution. Also of note: This PC has 12 fans! So I was looking to simply repurpose and not add any additional fans. Until someone commented that my fans have a static pressure value that is too low (1.4mm) for push pull on a decent radiator. I have done a ton of research preparing for this but I am still a little unsure as to which radiator to use. I need some thoughtful suggestions from experienced liquid cooling gurus. The basic parts list so far (not counting the fittings & bending kit): Corsair Hydro X Series XD5 RGB Pump/Reservoir Combo Watercool Heatkiller IV for RTX 2080 Ti - Acrylic + Nickel, RGB (also with a passive backplate) Hydro X Series XT Hardline 14mm tubing Radiator - 360mm, likely a push or pull configuration and top mounted. The best performing rads seem to be: Aquacomputer airplex radical 2/360, copper fins (the fin density on this rad is low, so a push or pull config should work) Corsair Hydro X Series XR5 360mm Water Cooling Radiator EK Quantum Surface P360M (Love the look of this rad, but that thickness and fin density seems to indicate I would need a push/pull config. That would not fit the top clearance in my case) Suggestions on what 360mm radiator to use?

It's been about 25 years and perhaps 15 - 20 PC builds, 60% were my own. The rest built for friends & family. I'd say about half of those builds were overclocked in some way. This year I finally decided at long last I would dip my toe into the world of custom water cooling. I mean sure, I've had a couple of builds with AIO coolers, but never have I felt the need to do a completely custom job. I guess I always felt the returns were of little value compared to cost. I'm now in a position where I can afford the time and money o do it. If nothing else, for the satisfaction. And I now have the tools for the most part. A few of my most recent builds: 2015: Mini-ITX Build (2015) by chrisjmartini - Intel Core i7-4790K, GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER, Thermaltake Core V1 Mini ITX Desktop - PCPartPicker 2019: The White Kraken (2019) by chrisjmartini - Intel Core i9-9900K, GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic ATX Full Tower - PCPartPicker (This one will get a water cooled GPU this month!) 2023: Death Note (2023) by chrisjmartini - Intel Core i9-13900K, GeForce RTX 4090, Corsair iCUE 7000X RGB ATX Full Tower - PCPartPicker (This one will also need it's RTX 4090 liquid cooled. That GPU runs hot!) Happy to meet like minded fellow builders!