Watercooling 2x 7950GX2. ( Quad gpu ! )

Danger Den GX2 watercooling block. 2sets.
















This post has been edited by uglyvamp: Jul 14 2007, 07:18 PM

looking at the workmanship, its around 7/10 rating only .. pretty bad as i had to touch up a bit.


here the BGA Rams on the vga card is cooled by the waterblock as well.

DD did not provide any other heat transfer material, they expect their waterblock to touch the vga's memory modules 100% i guess. I'm rather doubtful bout this, thus, I add on 3M Thermal tape for better contacts with the memory modules.


this is where the 2seperate block "communicate" with each other. The 2blocks are secured by 3screws & 1gasket lining. The no. 8 shape is the gasket.




all the tools required to fix up the blocks






need a darn hole for water exit from the vga card

ok .... now the problem is the barbs. the barbs are using 1/2 size. with G1/4 threading, like most standard barbs used on other mid-high end watercooling stuffs.

the 2darned barbs u see on the pic is not aligned together.





DD do provide me with a shorter barb, but shorter barb mean less security on the hose. I'm debating with myself wat solution now .... sux

U shud haf gotten the other brand. IIRC it was Innovatek. It's so much more elegant. The block is designed so nicely it looks like a single piece instead of the weird 1+1 design of the DD. Also the pipes exit from the side instead of top n bottom. Top , bottom pipes r just plain weird n cause lotsa install problems like what ure facing now.

That"Warranty Void" sticker is also plain stupidity, y on earth they need to put it on the front where it's clearly visible. So ugly to haf those stickers in a pimped rig. Ppl buy 7950GX2 watercooled sure wanna pimp mar. With those ugly stickers there in plain view how to pimp?


Just found the Innovatek pix. Now, that looks really 1337 man. Look at the build quality n design, awesomeeeeeeeeeeee.



This post has been edited by ianho: Oct 13 2006, 04:34 PM


Attached thumbnail(s)

but the innvotek 1 most probably cant fit on the second card, as u can see in the picture. the second card leave so little space to the bottom. you might have to cut the bottom as well.

and here a Aquacomputer GX2 block both inlet and outlet facing up.


This post has been edited by hollowbean: Oct 13 2006, 05:03 PM

apa mau headache susah susah





swiftech spacer kit for gx2..

This post has been edited by PowerSlide: Oct 13 2006, 05:22 PM

ian .. i'm cooling 2pcs gx2 leh .. sure those can fit ?

i've checked with them & they take longer to make, thus, i drop the idea of getting from them and went for DD instead ..

That's a really nice kit. Can be done on our own if we buy the long mobo standoffs but we cant get the interconnect bridge which is included with this kit. But it's only practical for usage with a single 7950GX2. If u use it on a Quad SLi set up there's gonna be 8 joints on it. More joints= more chance for leakage. With a proper block like the DD, Innova n Aqua, there's only 4 joints to deal with.






Anyway, I've thought of a solution for gary's dilemma. Y not use all L joint barbs? That wud solve everything including a much nicer n compact water loop. Here's a pix to describe what I'm thinking about.

This post has been edited by ianho: Oct 13 2006, 05:45 PM


Attached thumbnail(s)

Indeed a headache..

The L joint should work but would there be too many corners to turn through both the GC loops. Will it even drop water pressure even...?

b4 i started off this project, i did a lot of research on which block to get. I"ve even approached local machinist on the average cost of making a custom block, but that turn out to be some SGD$300 which i feel its a bit too high & won't look pretty for the final product. Besides, if there's some technical/engineering fault, it'll be a waste of time & $ . ..

i turn to DD in the end bcos,

1) the blocks are made of copper. ( whereas others are alu, if u check again )
2) able to quad sli easier based on the concept i've for this stoopig TT big useless steal casing .. but again, this is casemodding !!! cannot fit die die also must make it fit !! arrgh ...

Infact, I've picked carefully which mobo to go alone with as well ( P5N32 SLI Premium, but alas this customer ... blur, he bought the TT Armour way b4 consulting me sux ..... and didn't want to change the chasis & insisted on using back the same...

geezz ... and so I thought well, take it as a challenge then .


thanks .. Ian, after looking at ur drawing, i figured out for some 15mins that it'll work out but there'll be too many routing ...

I wanna keep the entire setup as clean & neat possible with little corners like elbow joints. See, i'm only using 1x Laing D5 pump & its cooling 3x 120mm radiator + a about 60cm tall water reserator. Afraid the water pressure might drop. But hey !! Unless i use Eheim... heh.

anyway, i've changed the exisitng barb u see to the shorter ones instead. They call it "perfect seal". I"m crossing my fingers for now, till the silicon gel sets hard tomorrow, I'll do a test run for a few hours.

wish i don't have to dismantle & redo again ... cos its the last biatch thing i wanna do .. blah !!

God be with me ..




here b4 I do water test run, i dont want to take any chances & pray that it wont' leak, with the shorter barb. Though it does fit very well. Sorry guys ... I forgot to take a pic b4 applying the silicon gel. Yes, it looks like shitt for now but i've other ideas how to cover it up ...

if this doesnt work well, i guess i've to engage my machinist to custom make 2darn barbs for me .. lol


This post has been edited by uglyvamp: Oct 14 2006, 02:17 AM

Ian & guys ... do u tthink pump out water to vga blocks first then the CPU or the CPU first then to 4x gpu cores ??

which way u guys reckon is better ? sorry though i've somewhat decided cpu first due to the setup design i've in mind .. but i'd like to hear ur opinions as well ..

I always pump to GPU 1st coz the heat of CPUs is nothing compared to GPU nowadays. My main concern is always GPU heat. N also the loop looks a lot cleaner n simpler. Water pump to GPU to CPU so the loop goes from bottom of case to top in 1 clean loop. Instead of the water pump long hose to go up to CPU then down again to GPUs.

you can try to use those sieve used in cars to cover the car wires should make it look sexy

In the original Gx2 cooling system, the bottom card's fan is blowing onto the top 1? Won't the top 1 be very hot?

Why not try Koolance, they looks nice n spacious, IMO
Koolance L06




This post has been edited by Zicron: Oct 14 2006, 04:56 PM

uglyvamp, i'll pray that the 2 joint between the 2 gc wont leak

It doesn't blow onto the top card. It's separated by the PCB n the hot air gets blown out tru the back PCI plate. The top card does run about 10C hotter though. It's because the top card has very little space for intake of fresh air to the fan.

can onli say "walao weh"
this rig too power full

can try benck ka after finish??

hehe didnt really know whether the fan sucks in air or not from the main round hole...guess it sucks air in. Thanks

Sometimes it is really paint in the ass to setup cool and quiet system ....no offense just my sense....

so much of money spend on getting the right hardware..... especially among the gpu and cpu cooler....

Anyway the rig still looks nice ..too bad with that spec why dont get a nice Lian Li or Silverstone case that is available widely there....

just wanna know will the graphic card spoil if continue using the stock fan?

Usually it wont but it would not be good for OC and long lasting .... just my sense....

ic...but brands like galaxy which use zalman fans for the graphic card, is that considered stock fans? Do people replace them with other fans?

u've got the point ..

many ask me that question already ...

and the thing is my this customer already purchased this TT armour chasis b4 consulting me ... geezz ..

he regretted though & didn't wanna waste it anyway .. as its not that cheap either

after all, casemodding is all its about !! die die also must make the whole thing work& looks good @ great performance ... no choice.



yea guys, when fully done up .. will bench it .... i'm so eager to test it myself too .. otherwise will hardly get some opportunity again. heh ..

The 3DM05, 3DM06 gfx benchmarks r gonna be really dissapointing man. Quad SLi actually gets lower scores than a single 7950GX2. The overhead taxes the CPU more n in the end the results r less. That's y until now I haven't bought another 7950GX2. I wud love Quad SLi in my King Kong too but the current drivers r useless n the performance is less. How I wud love to haf Quad blinging up my case internals but I'll wait for good drivers n performance 1st.Quad only shines when u use a 30" monitor n turn on things like full AA n AF.

^^
Uncle banyak $$, can buy 30" and another 7950GX2 with full AA and AF ma

if penty $$$$$ then wait the Nvidia G80 or ATI R600 then 1 card already KO 2x 7950GX2

Now got money also cannot buy

waiting is endless....

yes, i agree quad vga is not mature enough at the moment ..

but let's see the benching results when its fully setup ..

once in a lifetime to come across such bombastic rigs, its my greatest pleasure to build for this guy, irregardless of whether its a wrong combo, wrong hardware choice, wrong chasis ... watever.

wait for the completion guys ... soon very soon !

wow.. u must be enjoying ur job.. working with lots of super high end stuffs

for me, the koolance looks simpler, but i'm sure DD blocks will beat other blocks out there

Wow, Quad-SLI in a secc case? Talk about injustice... anyway, its the customer's right. The job is looks good enuf but who would want to oc the quad now? Like uncle said earlier , I hope your customer has like 30" widescreen LCD to use this because quadsli is totally wasted in lower resolutions.

Besides, DirectX9 API has too much overhead causing the quad sli to overwork itself. Hopefully DirectX10 will resolve this and actually make use of it.

I dunno about everyone else, but I don't buy things to just have it. There should be actual use of the product and even more performance gain for such a spec. It would be really interesting to actually see some real-world scores between single vs dual 7950gx2 done by you.

Oi ulgyvamp wtf la yesterday i went your shop in sim lim square beside the handphone accesories shop but closed. Shit la i wanted to buy lots of stuff from u and now u just lost one customer.LOL but nvm dec 9th i will be at ur shop again make sure u are open.

alamak .. u never call me b4 hand or at least SMS me ..

___________________________________________________________________


anyhow ... here's the progress & geezz .... haven't done any leak test yet .. so much time spent on doing the little things ..


ok, default is the tall barb on the left ... the shortest in the middle being too short ( budle together ) & looking too ugly with silicon gel. so i drop that & found another 1.
dont care so much liao, just unscrewed from Alphacool's cpu block original default barb & so darn lucky the threading size fit alright. I took a saw & shorten off the threading area a bit & file nicely then whola !!! all 4barbs on the GX2 cards are now better, fitter & tighter

They call this barb, "perfect seal". 1/2 inch OD.



and now this looks better, we get to see pretty water flowing ..




i really luv this barb, perfect seal indeed. the sealing part truely work wonder with some hose clamp, it'll be perfectly tight !!


here's where the water exit will be. water exiting the vga will go back to the black aluminium tower reserator. acting like 1st stage cooling b4 water go to the radiator.

cpu --> GPU --> Reserator ( water tank / reservoir ) --> Radiator --> Pump --> CPU



bottom exit, a mini blowhole. water from GPU goes to the reserator / water tank with the 1 & only elbow 1/2" joint. THe less joint like this the better the water pressure. More corners, more joints/barbs mean less water pressure... and wont look nice either ..


a preview of the overall setup for now ....

we're currently working on raising the chasis's feet by about 4cm more without the entire chasis being unstable.


here are some closeup details of securing the heavy rad & reserator together.
i figured out SECC chasis should be stronger than aluminium chasis if I were to mount this way ....

This post has been edited by uglyvamp: Oct 17 2006, 02:32 AM

further with screws & nuts...

insane's computer

OMG...crazy radiator.....

If only it was something like CM Stacker then it might look nice... Otherwise the whole thing looks a little weird. But its special

wat a massive setup. the radiator at the back looks like a locomotive engine and u can expect smoke to come out from the back
but its such as pity though, if such a machine cant out-perform the single 7950GX2 setup

woah nice setup man, but the bottom gpu will get the coolant abit hotter since it pass through cpu and 1st gpu ....can a?..

how the question is, can u even hook up ur monitor to it?

wah... there would be massive of job if any changes would be make to the case or WC setup.... especially the radiator and resovior...

I guess that's what i call constraint of cool, quiet and performance and lastly convenient..

Anyway i dont think it would be problem to the owner as he could always consult uglyvamp maintenance service...

This post has been edited by Doom: Oct 17 2006, 10:26 PM

ok ... haven't got time to reply here & update the quad vga cooling project here cos rushing this project below, stay tuned tonite .. !! :

TJ-07 again on Crossfire ! some hardwares to wet ur appetite first ...







This post has been edited by uglyvamp: Oct 18 2006, 11:23 PM

Nice Hardware wish can own it one day

Woooooo....... Dominator RAMs! Overpriced, but definitely pretty cool ATM.

Why....Why.....

Quad not finished and now Crossfire...

lol .. becos becos the xfire is an angmor rig .. he wants it fast so he paid for express service lor .. haha.


give 1 back pic first .. heh ..

touching up with sound insulator at the moment ..



This post has been edited by uglyvamp: Oct 18 2006, 11:56 PM

angmor in spore became kiasu!!! lolx
anyway sweet hardware u have there.... 3o of my favorite things is there... the TJ07, Dominator and the P5W64

wow, Dominator RAMs are damn cool. That is my dream rig for now

@@" i believe the 1950xtx xfire pawn the GX2. kewl...

Make sure you make a Macro shot on those Dominator RAMs to make us all drool..

Some updates ..

as been busy with other projects, this one been on hold for quite sometime & work just started to continue last few days.

cable management witth these hardwares is indeed a big challenge !
not 100% complete but will see if there's any improvement to make


4x sata harddrives
2x ide harddrives ( but not enough IDE onboard as 2 has been used for optical drive, therefore using sata to ide converter .. arghh .. )
4x 1gb rams
2x 7950gx2
2x optical drive
1x M-Play Blast LCD display with fan controller
Enermax 1000watt psu ( extra big !!! )

on top of all the above hardwares, interior is little cramp despite a full tower TT Armour chasis ..











the ooh .. 1000watt Enermax Galaxy extra longer than usual ..






lastly .. u can see the water in the aluminium tank bubbling with joy ..

screenshot CPU & GPU temperature with open sidepanel.
( more pictures & screenshots will be updated when fully done )

Speedfan :

Temp 1 = CPU
Temp 2 = Chipset

Temp 1 ( bottom ) CPU core temp




This post has been edited by uglyvamp: Nov 1 2006, 05:01 AM

That's cool. 3ghz at a temperature of only 22C

Eh, didn't o/c the cpu?

Btw, How hot is the water onces it comes out from the VGA?

Wow.. still messy, wonder how u gonna do the management..
Cool rig, but y the owner only buys 1GB ram, a rig like tat shud be 2GB no?

1 gb?
not 4 x 1GB??

hehe. may be he spend too much on the amount of hard disk. how big is the total capacity? 7 hard core brain in there

oh my god... everything is l33t stuff.. siao.. really wan to know how is the owner..

everything is l33t but the most unl33t of all would be the casing.... wonder why the feller didnt go for a lian li or even a tj07

maybe his budget lari already...kekekekek

OK. Enuf with the spam on pricing n costing. Please go to Price n Dealer's Guide section for all that. Let's keep it on track with the worklog.

Thread cleaned.

This post has been edited by ianho: Nov 2 2006, 02:59 PM

thanks Ian, i'm getting a bit off nerve with the pricing too. most pricing are quite standard anyway.

..

now doing benching of the system, can't seem to get good scores

Will update later tonite if possible, still raping the system ..

below are the tentative scores from 3Dmark05/06.

Will try further after BBS 6


3Dmark 05 benchmark screenie.



3Dmark 06 benchmark screenie.

Holy cow! 630mhz core speed, 725mhz mem speed! That's the true power of water cooling. There's no way mine can hit anywhere near that speed on stock cooling. The highest I've pushed mine was 580mhz/700mhz. Here u go ppl, that's the true power of modding. Without cooling mods like this example here, it's simply impossible to achieve speeds like that.

I'm wondering though, that 18000 score in 3DM05, was it due to the Conroe at 3.7ghz or because of Quad SLi. Did u try benching just 1 card at the same exact speeds? Mine only scores 13000 with single card.

Perhaps it's due to the driver hasn't fully optimised for Quad SLI yet

didn't try single card cos straight away wack 2cards & watercool liao ..

the quad sli is still possible to push higher but just need more time to have the sweetest non-artifact benching. probably need to up gpu voltage or mem volt. i've also searched the internet for awhile but to no avail. maybe u or anyone can provide some tips ?

for that kinda scores i guess its the cpu that's the driving point, not the card. cos single card, 3Dmark05 scores should be hovering around 13k mark .. whereas dual card should be like at least 50% more power.
i did a search on futuremark website & found that dual card with conroe clocked at 4.3-4.5ghz also scored around 22-23k .

so i guess its the gpu driver that is the limitation now
seriously if nvidia were to unleash this dual card's potential, its gonna be explosive

till then we'll just sit & wait.

as for the X6800 cpu, we've not got the sweetest oc benchable mark yet. still playing around. the memory is capable of DDR 1066mhz but we're actually running it at only DDR 800 & 2x 1gb.

this part also not yet fully explored. wait till after BBS 6 .. gonna rape this b**** like mad ...

Haha... i passed by ur shop last week n saw tat system... still lying there... hope can see the benchmark for tis system soon... hehe!!!

This post has been edited by -=J4cKa5s=-: Nov 6 2006, 04:04 PM

ur from BP as well ?? .. hmm.. look at my location, same same.

Haha.. yup.. i think u will know me gua, coz last time u sell me counter strike cd...

But long time din see u d, haha... den the system still lying on your shop...?

This post has been edited by -=J4cKa5s=-: Nov 8 2006, 10:54 AM

Is it still works in progress?

Still on 85%?

85.1% i think

... project completed 100% but rig taken without taking more pictures

forget to take ... sux .. anyway the end result is roughly there already lah ..


currently building another rig ..

Project TJ-09 !!! another Conroe + Crossfire 1950XTX machine ...

some preview pictures here, after that I shall start a new official thread for it when its all completed ..

Here the customer took down an Antec dont know wat case ... silver alu .. quite ugly outside .. oops.
Inside messy .. and he has overheating problem with the Crossfire 1950XTX.

He got a new TJ-09 & we're gonna transfer the old hardware over .... sort of a revamp his rig + watercooling inside.






just mounted the 2x 120mm Coooltrek radiator earlier today .. getting the exact pinpoint mounting holes for the rad is a argh ..

Wow how I wished you had a shop in KL! Need assistance to set up my rig! You're truly a Mod Guru!

klguy

Yeah yeah... Wish u open a shop in JB area as well. BP damn far away from JB lah

lol.. in KL we got uncle ianho mah... heheh.... but also a good thing if 2 mod gurus stay in kl... haha...

All finished or active worklogs bumped to avoid deletion.

Re-rig !!

The real user is a very nice young man. Very well mannered, courteous & cheerful. I feel so tiny when i get to know further his hobbies, family, etc. hmmm... photography, luv in exotic cars, touring europe in porsche & owning them is enough. :rolleyes

This one has just been re-rigged recently. After the mobo break-down. We changed a new mobo. Took the darn distro 2mths for the replacement.

We took the opportunity to do some maintenance like changing the coolant, changing tubing, cleaning up dust and re-orientate the radiator. the previous rad orientation was a mistake & created a lot of bubbles. and also tidy up the cables further, added longer uv lights & sidepanel modded further with user's nick laser engraved on the acrylic panel.

we'll show u the temp screenshot last of the images below.

re-rig finally eh vamp !

this thread seem lost after a while, we were just following up waiting for the end results then.

dont' mind please show some full picture & the temperatures too !

Idling temp for CPU & the 4cores GPU


CPU load temp after 3hrs + orthos.


A brief 3DMark06 bench of the system. Take a look at the highest temp clock in from Rivatuner. All gpu cores are cool, 40C+


This post has been edited by uglyvamp: Jul 14 2007, 08:00 PM

WTH , GPU temp 38c-41c only . nice ...

wah nice result .... how I wish my 2900XT is that cool then the stock fan don't even need to run up like mad blower ..

woa...reli cold...*freeze*

damn, over a year later and I'm still drooling looking at that.

uglyvamp, you've got some crazy clients.

I want to be one. =)