3 yr old PC needs some love - Upgrading GPU to water cooling - Which Radiator?

[DinoBull]

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?

 

[Avacado]

The Aqua Computer rads are top quality and that HK block for the 2080Ti is great. Before I make any suggestions here, is there a budget?

 

Unfortunately the O11 case is a hotbox for water cooling without some modifications. 

Edited January 11, 2023 by Avacado

[DinoBull]

9 minutes ago, Avacado said:

The Aqua Computer rads are top quality and that HK block for the 2080Ti is great. Before I make any suggestions here, is there a budget?

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.

Edited January 11, 2023 by DinoBull

[Avacado]

27 minutes ago, DinoBull said:

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.

Ok, that is a sizable budget. Most water cooling parts will continue in service long after the first generation you buy them for, so the 2080Ti block will go, the rad, pump, res, and fittings will transplant to your next build. 

 

As far as rads go, I mostly run Alpha cool rads, which are dirty, but effective. Hardware labs would be my second choice. The copper fins you are worried about oxidizing would not be an issue unless they were constantly wet which would not be a result of loop temperature because it can't go below ambient (Dew Point) and create condensation. In order for that to happen you would need a chiller or more exotic cooling solutions. It's possible in an humid environment, but unlikely as the fans blowing air through the rad "should" evaporate some/most left on the surface. I really don't know if it would oxidize over a few years naturally though

Edited January 11, 2023 by Avacado

[Fluxmaven]

Nice thing about upgrading older platforms is finding deals on stuff. Funny enough Titanrig is the seller via the Amazon link you posted, but buying the same block from them directly from their site it's on sale for $42.50 

Watercool HEATKILLER IV GPU Water Block for RTX 2080 Ti, RGB, Acryl Ni (4251312603663)

WWW.TITANRIG.COM

---

The HEATKILLER? IV VGA series is manufactured for high-performance water cooling for grapgics cardsCompatible with NVIDIA Geforce RTX...

 

[DinoBull]

37 minutes ago, Avacado said:

Ok, that is a sizable budget. Most water cooling parts will continue in service long after the first generation you buy them for, so the 2080Ti block will go, the rad, pump, res, and fittings will transplant to your next build. 

 

As far as rads go, I mostly run Alpha cool rads, which are dirty, but effective. Hardware labs would be my second choice. The copper fins you are worried about oxidizing would not be an issue unless they were constantly wet which would not be a result of loop temperature because it can't go below ambient (Dew Point) and create condensation. In order for that to happen you would need a chiller or more exotic cooling solutions. It's possible in an humid environment, but unlikely as the fans blowing air through the rad "should" evaporate some/most left on the surface. I really don't know if it would oxidize over a few years naturally though

 

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.

[DinoBull]

22 minutes ago, Fluxmaven said:

Nice thing about upgrading older platforms is finding deals on stuff. Funny enough Titanrig is the seller via the Amazon link you posted, but buying the same block from them directly from their site it's on sale for $42.50 

Watercool HEATKILLER IV GPU Water Block for RTX 2080 Ti, RGB, Acryl Ni (4251312603663)

WWW.TITANRIG.COM

---

The HEATKILLER? IV VGA series is manufactured for high-performance water cooling for grapgics cardsCompatible with NVIDIA Geforce RTX...

 

Nice find and good point!

[UltraMega]

9900k is not going to bottleneck a newer gpu unless you're playing at 1080p. 

[DinoBull]

51 minutes ago, UltraMega said:

9900k is not going to bottleneck a newer gpu unless you're playing at 1080p. 

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.

 

 

Edited January 11, 2023 by DinoBull

[pio]

27 minutes ago, DinoBull said:

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.

 

 

Not trying to convince you one way or the other, but those bottleneck calculators are usually so off its hilarious.  Your 9900k easily, EASILY beats my Ryzen 3600.  But yet I've ran my 6900XT on my Ryzen 3600 and it worked fine.  Yes, I saw a minimum framerate increase when jumping to my 5800x.  Averages were about the same.

 

I'm confident you'd see a significant increase going to a 3080 / 3080Ti over your current 2080Ti in the system, enough to the point it'd be worth the "upgrade".  HOWEVER, given this isn't your only system, that upgrade path is up to you.  Nothing wrong with the pairing you already have either.

 

-------------

About water cooling......

 

Have you thought about ditching the AIO and doing a full CPU / GPU loop on that build?  It'd save a little room in the case, and might make it easier to control where the heat is coming from in that case since Avacado pointed out the case can be a hot box.  Besides, most of the time when somebody builds a loop for their GPU, they USUALLY toss the CPU in the loop too eventually, whether it was in their original plans or not.   

Edited January 11, 2023 by pioneerisloud

[UltraMega]

1 hour ago, DinoBull said:

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.

 

 

Yea, as pio said (and it pains me to agree with him ) that calculator is worthless in the context of stuff like this. A mild overclock on the 9900k would go a long way for one, and two, you have to be looking for cpu bottlenecks to find them with games on a cpu like yours vs something new. You can benchmark CSGO at 1080p and find differences, sure, but for all practical purposes the differences in modern games at resolutions above 1080p are completely negligible. If it were me I'd hold onto the CPU and put the money towards something else if this is for gaming. 

 

What kind of games do you play and what resolution/hz are you targeting? 

Edited January 11, 2023 by UltraMega

[DinoBull]

17 minutes ago, pioneerisloud said:

Not trying to convince you one way or the other, but those bottleneck calculators are usually so off its hilarious.  Your 9900k easily, EASILY beats my Ryzen 3600.  But yet I've ran my 6900XT on my Ryzen 3600 and it worked fine.  Yes, I saw a minimum framerate increase when jumping to my 5800x.  Averages were about the same.

 

I'm confident you'd see a significant increase going to a 3080 / 3080Ti over your current 2080Ti in the system, enough to the point it'd be worth the "upgrade".  HOWEVER, given this isn't your only system, that upgrade path is up to you.  Nothing wrong with the pairing you already have either.

 

-------------

About water cooling......

 

Have you thought about ditching the AIO and doing a full CPU / GPU loop on that build?  It'd save a little room in the case, and might make it easier to control where the heat is coming from in that case since Avacado pointed out the case can be a hot box.  Besides, most of the time when somebody builds a loop for their GPU, they USUALLY toss the CPU in the loop too eventually, whether it was in their original plans or not.   

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.

[DinoBull]

17 minutes ago, UltraMega said:

Yea, as pio said (and it pains me to agree with him ) that calculator is worthless in the context of stuff like this. A mild overclock on the 9900k would go a long way for one, and two, you have to be looking for cpu bottlenecks to find them with games on a cpu like yours vs something new. You can benchmark CSGO at 1080p and find differences, sure, but for all practical purposes the differences in modern games at resolutions above 1080p is completely neglidgable. If it were me I'd hold onto the CPU and put the money towards something else if this is for gaming. 

 

What kind of games do you play and what resolution/hz are you targeting? 

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!!! 

Edited January 11, 2023 by DinoBull

[UltraMega]

17 minutes ago, DinoBull said:

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!!! 

Is your CPU overclocked? 

 

I think at that resolution you would get a lot more of a performance boost putting the same amount of money all into a GPU vs spreading it out across multiple parts. You should be much more GPU bottlenecked than CPU bottlenecked with the games you listed at the resolution you're targeting. The PCIe3 bandwidth factor in not important, it won't bottleneck the GPU at all. 

 

4K is a bit higher res than you're targeting, but you're not far off. You can see here the real difference for gaming are basically nothing at high res, even for a 4090, aside from a few odd titles but anything short of a 4090 would see much smaller differences still. 

 

 

Edited January 11, 2023 by UltraMega

[pio]

18 minutes ago, DinoBull said:

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.

Well, I'll just put it this way.  My 6900XT is a PCIe 4.0 card.  My Ryzen 3600 / B450 build only allows PCIe 3.0.  Card worked fine, and I saw a massive improvement over my 5700XT that was in the build previously.  HOWEVER, minimum framerates hadn't changed at all, and that was the biggest reason for my own personal upgrade.  So yeah, I was CPU limited, in the sense that my minimum framerates (the stutter) hadn't changed.

 

Yes, PCIe 4.0 matters on PCIe 4.0 cards, of course it does.  That doesn't mean that you won't see an improvement on a PCIe 3.0 system as well though.  This has been argued about since PCIe 2.0 came out to be honest.  It really all depends on your needs and wants out of the system.  If you're happy with your current 2080Ti with + 1-2% more, then yeah watercooling that sounds like the right choice.  If you're happy with it, and just want it to be cooler running, more silent, or perhaps just to do something different, yeah watercooling it sounds right.  If you're after a higher percentage difference than overclocking can give you, get a better GPU for it.

[UltraMega]

2 minutes ago, pioneerisloud said:

Well, I'll just put it this way.  My 6900XT is a PCIe 4.0 card.  My Ryzen 3600 / B450 build only allows PCIe 3.0.  Card worked fine, and I saw a massive improvement over my 5700XT that was in the build previously.  HOWEVER, minimum framerates hadn't changed at all, and that was the biggest reason for my own personal upgrade.  So yeah, I was CPU limited, in the sense that my minimum framerates (the stutter) hadn't changed.

 

Yes, PCIe 4.0 matters on PCIe 4.0 cards, of course it does.  That doesn't mean that you won't see an improvement on a PCIe 3.0 system as well though.  This has been argued about since PCIe 2.0 came out to be honest.  It really all depends on your needs and wants out of the system.  If you're happy with your current 2080Ti with + 1-2% more, then yeah watercooling that sounds like the right choice.  If you're happy with it, and just want it to be cooler running, more silent, or perhaps just to do something different, yeah watercooling it sounds right.  If you're after a higher percentage difference than overclocking can give you, get a better GPU for it.

Ryzen 3600 would bottleneck in modern games though because it's only 12 threads and just an average clock speed. Wouldn't have been because of PCIe3. Games are designed for 16 threads now and the 9900K is a 16 thread CPU that can hit high clock speeds. 

Edited January 11, 2023 by UltraMega

[Avacado]

Sounds like you are getting some solid advice. As far as the water cooling components, please don't pull the trigger without confirming your list here first.

 

Need to discuss fittings and that Corsair D5/res is not your best option. Aqua computer and Bitspower beat it hands down, the D5 is also gimped on power as well. Also, those Corsair radiators are just rebranded Hardware Labs rads with a marked up price tag. 

[UltraMega]

OP what do you do with your old parts? Do you sell them? FYI I think a lot of us here sell our old parts so we usually consider the resale value as part of our upgrade costs. 

 

You sell your 2080Ti and get $200 back for it, buy a 4070Ti new for $850 after tax, or a used 3080Ti for ~$700 and at the end of the day you'd get a huge FPS upgrade for a pretty solid price. 

Edited January 11, 2023 by UltraMega

[Avacado]

1 minute ago, UltraMega said:

OP what do you do with your old parts? Do you sell them? FYI I think a lot of us here sell our old parts so we usually consider the resale value as part of our upgrade costs. 

He's right, a used 9900K still goes for about $300 USD on ebay. I know because I needed one about 3 weeks ago. 

[DinoBull]

18 minutes ago, UltraMega said:

Is your CPU overclocked? 

 

I think at that resolution you would get a lot more of a performance boost putting the same amount of money all into a GPU vs spreading it out across multiple parts. You should be much more GPU bottlenecked than CPU bottlenecked with the games you listed at the resolution you're targeting. The PCIe3 bandwidth factor in not important, it won't bottleneck the GPU at all. 

 

4K is a bit higher res than you're targeting, but you're not far off. You can see here the real difference for gaming are basically nothing at high res, even for a 4090, aside from a few odd titles but anything short of a 4090 would see much smaller differences still. 

 

 

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.

[DinoBull]

20 minutes ago, pioneerisloud said:

Well, I'll just put it this way.  My 6900XT is a PCIe 4.0 card.  My Ryzen 3600 / B450 build only allows PCIe 3.0.  Card worked fine, and I saw a massive improvement over my 5700XT that was in the build previously.  HOWEVER, minimum framerates hadn't changed at all, and that was the biggest reason for my own personal upgrade.  So yeah, I was CPU limited, in the sense that my minimum framerates (the stutter) hadn't changed.

 

Yes, PCIe 4.0 matters on PCIe 4.0 cards, of course it does.  That doesn't mean that you won't see an improvement on a PCIe 3.0 system as well though.  This has been argued about since PCIe 2.0 came out to be honest.  It really all depends on your needs and wants out of the system.  If you're happy with your current 2080Ti with + 1-2% more, then yeah watercooling that sounds like the right choice.  If you're happy with it, and just want it to be cooler running, more silent, or perhaps just to do something different, yeah watercooling it sounds right.  If you're after a higher percentage difference than overclocking can give you, get a better GPU for it.

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.

[pio]

17 minutes ago, UltraMega said:

Ryzen 3600 would bottleneck in modern games though because it's only 12 threads and just an average clock speed. Wouldn't have been because of PCIe3. Games are designed for 16 threads now and the 9900K is a 16 thread CPU that can hit high clock speeds. 

Right, that was exactly my point even if I made it horribly.   If the CPU is going to bottleneck, its going to bottleneck regardless of resolution.  The PCIe version makes much less of a difference in terms of bottlenecking than the CPU will.

 

Actually, if anything PCIe 3.0 would be about his ONLY bottleneck on that 9900k system.  If I found an upgrade with my 6900XT with a Ryzen 3600 with PCIe 3.0, he'll surely see it as an even bigger upgrade with a 9900k with PCIe 3.0.  As such, yeah I wouldn't even worry about it because the performance jump from having a better GPU would negate any "bottleneck" from the PCIe bus.

[DinoBull]

17 minutes ago, Avacado said:

Sounds like you are getting some solid advice. As far as the water cooling components, please don't pull the trigger without confirming your list here first.

 

Need to discuss fittings and that Corsair D5/res is not your best option. Aqua computer and Bitspower beat it hands down, the D5 is also gimped on power as well. Also, those Corsair radiators are just rebranded Hardware Labs rads with a marked up price tag. 

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.

[DinoBull]

14 minutes ago, UltraMega said:

OP what do you do with your old parts? Do you sell them? FYI I think a lot of us here sell our old parts so we usually consider the resale value as part of our upgrade costs. 

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.

[UltraMega]

2 minutes ago, pioneerisloud said:

Right, that was exactly my point even if I made it horribly.   If the CPU is going to bottleneck, its going to bottleneck regardless of resolution.  The PCIe version makes much less of a difference in terms of bottlenecking than the CPU will.

 

Actually, if anything PCIe 3.0 would be about his ONLY bottleneck on that 9900k system.  If I found an upgrade with my 6900XT with a Ryzen 3600 with PCIe 3.0, he'll surely see it as an even bigger upgrade with a 9900k with PCIe 3.0.  As such, yeah I wouldn't even worry about it because the performance jump from having a better GPU would negate any "bottleneck" from the PCIe bus.

Nah, PCIe bandwidth is never an issue for gaming. By the time it would bottleneck a GPU, the rest of the hardware along with it would be a much bigger factor.