Testing Configuration and Benchmarks Used
To verify that the water block works as advertised, the video card was run through our standard benchmark suite at both stock and overclocked speeds. The results are presented for at both speeds for performance comparison purposes. The benchmark tests used should give you a good understanding of the water block's capabilities while using the card for gaming so that you, the reader, can make a more informed purchasing decision.
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Test System Setup |
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CPU |
Intel Core i7-4770K (3.5GHz, 35 x 100MHz Base Clock) |
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Motherboards |
GIGABYTE Z87X-OC Force |
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Memory |
Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 modules (1600MHz, 9-10-9-27-1T) |
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Hard Drive |
Intel 520 240GB SSD Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA III HD |
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Sound Card |
Onboard sound |
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Video Card |
EVGA GTX 670 FTW 2GB |
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Cooling |
Laing DDC pump with EK-DDC X-TOP Rev 2 Plexi Swiftech MCR320-QP Radiator XSPC Razor GTX680 water block Corsair H100i Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler |
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Video Drivers |
NVIDIA 320.18 |
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Power Supply |
Corsair HX 750 |
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Operating System |
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 |
Test Setup Explanation
The 64-bit Windows 7 based test bench used for testing includes an Intel Core i7-4770K CPU, 16GB of DDR3-1866 memory, an EVGA GTX 670 FTW 2GB video card, and an Intel 520 240GB SSD drive. Using the selected components gives us the ability to demonstrate the water block's capabilities rather than that of the components themselves.
Benchmark Tests used for evaluation:
- BioShock: Infinite Benchmark
- Tomb Raider Benchmark
- FutureMark 3DMark11
- FutureMark 3DMark
- Geeks3D FurMark v1.10.2
- Unigine Heaven v4.0
Is there a reason we you only
Is there a reason we you only show the temp over ambient vs actual temp? Most households would have ambient temps between 22-26. I just think actual temp would have been easier for an idiot like me to comprehend.
Of course, there is ambient
Of course, there is ambient temp within the case, which is probably what should be used… but still confusing. Just give me temps! TEMPS!!!
We report delta temps instead
We report delta temps instead of actual temps to allow you to calculate what your temps would be based on your house or office ambient. The delta temps are the card gpu temps minus ambient temperature measured at the time of testing. We moved to reporting delta temps rather than measured temps based on user feedback from previous cooler reviews.
For example, typically my home office temp ambient is between 26-27C. For stock temps with the ambient at 26C, the GPU temp should idle at 28C and go up to 47C under load temps. If the ambient were 21C, the idle temp should be 23C and load at 42C.
add the numbers in the graphs
add the numbers in the graphs to your ambient. There’s your temp.
your ambient: 22
card delta: 10
22 + 10 = 32 degrees
math = gud
Yea, I just didn’t realize
Yea, I just didn’t realize what I was looking at initially. Many times I elect to just jump straight to the graphs, and they didn’t state anywhere that they were based on ambient… had to actually read. Knowledge is power!
Finding it hard to justify
Finding it hard to justify $99 for this waterblock.
The 10% overclock is not unrealistic for an air cooler, especially an aftermarket cooler.
Aftermarket coolers are typically very quiet.
Real-world usage will not push a 6xx/7xx series card with an aftermarket cooler beyond 70C, perfectly acceptable ultimate/maximum-use temperature.
Waterblocks are typically made for reference model designs, which fail to match the benefits of aftermarket designs.
If you can find an aftermarket model for the same/near the same price as a reference model, why bother with watercooling?
Keep in mind that the EVGA
Keep in mind that the EVGA GTX 670 FTW card used for the review came overclocked from the factory, so a 10% overclock with that card equates to a more than 20% overclock on a vanilla GTX 670. On a non-factory o/c'd card, the boost clock speed for the GPU typically hits 980MHz.
The choice between using an aftermarket cooler vs a water cooler is a long running debate that really has no right answer. I've been water cooling my rigs for a long time, and prefer that to pure air cooling mainly because of the fan noise associated with air coolers if you want to push the performance limits. It really comes down to the preference of the inidividual enthusiast…
Steel touching copper with a
Steel touching copper with a fluid running between them. I’ve had some issues with this before.
As long as your coolant has
As long as your coolant has some type of corrosion inhibiter in it (which most good coolant's should have), you should not run into any cross-metal type problems like galvanic corrosion…
The coolant is supposed to be
The coolant is supposed to be “non conductive”, so electrolytic/galvanic corrosion is a non-issue. Especially since the steel used is stainless and the copper is very pure and the lifespan of the cooler is much much shorter than it would take for the electrolysis to damage it so badly as to cause a malfunction. Would it be Aluminium instead of steel, it would “pee” in a few weeks.
Most of the good pumps used have a stainless steel part touching the coolant and there are no horror stories floating around.
Mild steel is a completely different story, that much is true.
Morry – i love your reviews,
Morry – i love your reviews, just one question: do things work when you put them back together? jk. keep up the awesome work!
Thanks. And yes, in most
Thanks. And yes, in most cases they do work after putting them back together. There was one time in the recent past were teh take apart result in disaster – but we won't discuss the H80i dissasembly here…
I like to see both because
I like to see both because what many heatsink reviews fail to show is the cooling performance curve with ambient temperature, eg CPU temperature will not scale linearly with ambient temperature, it tapers off slightly as ambient gets higher.
so temperature over ambient may not be the best indicator if you have some test done in a hot environment, where a 5 degree rise in ambient may only cause a 3-4 degree increase in CPU or GPU temperature.
I notice this with my current air cooler.
Good point. I will continue
Good point. I will continue to report in deltas in future cooling reviews but will include ambient temperature at the time of testing as an additional data point either in the graphs or test description.
Typically, my office ambient runs between 25-27C which is most likely typical or a bit hotter than most homes / home offices.
Thanks for the feedback…