Water-based Testing Configuration and Benchmarks Used
Rampage V Extreme board with Bitspower block and GTX 970's in SLI
Rampage V Extreme board with Bitspower block and GTX 780
To verify that the water block works as advertised, the video cards were 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.
| Test System Setup | |
| Motherboards | ASUS Rampage V Extreme |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-5960X Stock – 3.0GHz, 30 x 100MHz Base Clock Overclocked – 4.375GHz, 35 x 125MHz Base Clock |
| Memory | Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 modules Stock – 2133MHz, 15-17-17-35-1T, 1.225V Overclocked – 2666MHz, 15-17-17-35-2T, 1.25V |
| Hard Drive | Intel 730 EVO 240GB SSD Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA III HD |
| Sound Card | On-board sound |
| Video Card | ASUS Poseidon GTX 780 3GB graphics card EVGA GTX 970 SC 4GB Stock – 1354MHz GPU, 1752MHz Memory Overclocked – 1468MHz GPU, 1977MHz Memory |
| Cooling | XSPC Raystorm D5 Photon RX480 V3 WaterCooling Kit with Raystorm CPU water block, Bitspower AIX99R5E nickel-plated full cover block, and HeatKiller GPU-X3 GPU water blocks |
| Video Drivers | NVIDIA 352.86 |
| Power Supply | Corsair HX750 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Ultimate x64 |
| Coolant | Koolance LIQ-702 High Performance Liquid Coolant |
Test Setup Explanation
The 64-bit Windows 7 based test bench used for testing includes an Intel Core i7-5960X CPU, 32GB of DDR4-2666 memory, dual EVGA GTX 970 SC 4GB video cards, an ASUS Poseidon GTX 780 3GB graphics card, and an Intel 730 240GB SSD drive. Using the selected components gives us the ability to demonstrate the integrated water block's capabilities without interference from components. For all tests, the cooling systems pump was set to run at maximum speed for best performance with six fans attached to the 480mm radiator running at approximately 1200 RPM because of noise concerns. The ASUS Poseidon GTX 780 3GB graphics card was used for testing the Bitspower block and CPU in their own cooling loop with the GTX 780 using its stock air cooler for heat dissipation.
Benchmark Tests used for evaluation:
- AIDA64 Extreme Edition v5.00.3300
- EVGA's OC Scanner X Graphical Stress Tool
Great write up Morry! Getting
Great write up Morry! Getting ready for Quakecon?
Yes sir I am. Already there
Yes sir I am. Already there in fact…
More stuff like this, please!
More stuff like this, please! Great review!
Hello Sir Morry.
Thanks, Cool
Hello Sir Morry.
Thanks, Cool review (no pun intended…maybe just a little bit), but as far as I know, the chipset will benefit from watercooling only of you’re running 4-way sli/xfire.
Speaking of multi card config (it is the best segway I can come up with) I would like to ask if there’s any news on the review of the Asus X99-E WS motherboard, I hope I’m not being annoying or anything like.
thnx again
Hopefully that review will be
Hopefully that review will be forth coming, just waiting on review sample. As for the heat, you may not even need a full cover mb block with 4-way SLI / XFire b/c the air cooled solution with the Rampage V Extreme is that good. However, it comes down more to the "cool factor". In tandem with the hardline tubing, you really can't beat the look…
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Hi Morry! what about the heat
Hi Morry! what about the heat from The M.2 I imagine a Samsung 951 could get pretty hot it too bad that this cooler did not tak this into consideration. Some boards stack M.2’s so you could put the Samsung 951 on the bottom ad the Intel SAS or Mini SAS on top I think that would cause Lovely fire someone is going todo it for sure and watch their money burn! As alwats J.S.
An interesting piece of
An interesting piece of cooling hardware!
From your graphs, it appears that the GPU is fine at being cooled by air. The CPU needs a little more help and the VRM are the hot potatoes!
My question is; by cooling the VRM, has there been any noticeable performance improvements? I would think it helps with better stabilized OC ratings.
I’ve been told to cool the VRM, but I’m not ready to build a system with a water cooling system (also due to size). I plan to have the CPU cooled in liquid closed-loop. And the VRM cooled by air.
Generally, you get better
Generally, you get better stability and cooler temps by directly water cooling the VRMs. However, ASUS overengineered the Rampage's VRM cooler so heat is not too much of an issue with it.
You will get some added benefits with stability and overclocking, but not as mucch as you'd think. The one shortcoming of the VRM cooler included in the kit was with its smooth design. If there would have been pins or channels in the VRM cooler base, it would have cooled more effectively because of the added surface area and turbulence caused by such channels…
Morry,
If I understand your
Morry,
If I understand your response, generally speaking, having the VRM at a lower temp doesn’t provide any noticeable PC performance?
For my scenario, I will still proceed with attempting to lower the heat of the VRM for ease of mind that the circuits are receiving a cleaner signal.
I agree with your observation of VRM cooler base design. If it would have fins like those for the chipset, it would theoretically provide better cooling benefits. Did you use thermal paste or thermal pad for the VRM? I couldn’t find that detail in your review. I would think that the pad generates less thermal transfer than the paste.
VRM cooling helps with
VRM cooling helps with overclocking, my comment was more a testament of how well ASUS designed their stock VRM cooler. When you start pumping alot of power (current and voltage) through the CPU is when the VRMs become taxed and the more efficient cooling designs make a difference.
As for the paste vs pad, I use a pad b/c thats what the kit came with, but paste would work just as well or better. However, the temp diff for VRM cooling would be much less than you would see on a cpu for example…
From my experience, it is the
From my experience, it is the it is the cheap motherboards that need aftermarket VRM cooling the most. The problem is that if you have the money for aftermarket cooling for the motherboard, then you have the money to get a higher end board.
Many cheaper motherboards will have VRM temperatures in the 100C range, and the really cheap ones (non heatsinked 4 phase power delivery, will have temperatures hitting 120C with a core i7.
When you jump to higher end boards, you get VRM’s which are more efficient, and have a higher current capacity, along with 8+ phases. the end result is a low duty cycle on each VRM, and they end up running significantly cooler.
Most of the lowest end boards tend to rely on the VRM protection to keep them from overheating, instead of putting the 5-10 extra cents that it would take to add a heatsink. The down side is that you will end up with CPU throttling. This is why some lower end boards will benchmark lower, depending on the load and length of the test (e.g., if you do a prime 95 style load) there will be moments when the clock speed will jump around for a few milliseconds at a time.
Sadly the only boards that really benefit will be those $50-60 boards with 4 phase power and no VRM heatsink, but for some reason will have an auto overclocking function that will attempt to pump 1.3V into a core i5, when the VRM protection kicks in at stock speeds.
Thank you! Very informative
Thank you! Very informative 🙂
You pretty much answered my question in regards to VRM and overall system performance 🙂