Watercooled GPU but HOT backplate

[Carsomyr]

I've got a thermaltake core p5 case with a zotac arcticstorm 1080 ti graphics card. I noticed the temps on the GPU are absolutly awesome. However the backplate gets so hot that even the water in the reservoir next to the gpu seems a bit affected (condensation)...

Is it normal for backplates to get that hot?
I thought that the waterblock touched the components that could heat up leading to a cooler temperature for all parts of the card.

What are your thoughts about this and suggestions?
Aside from a million case fans :|

 

[ne6togadno]

increase rpms of the pump

 

[sneekypeet]

Blow a fan at it. The p5 chassis offers none.

 

[Ferrum Master]

If the water boils up... then no fan will help... the flow is not enough, the pump is either dead or too weak, or there's some sort issues with tubing or gunk.

 

[Carsomyr]

The pump is a D5 vario
I was under the impression it was plenty for my loop

I do have some objects that increase resistance yes. But why do you guys think the water flow or temp is the issue of the core of the gpu stays ice cold?!

See picture below
https://imgur.com/gallery/lgHPD
It never passes 40c (core)

 

[FireFox]

I was under the impression it was plenty for my loop

And it's plenty, i have a D5 working for two Machines at the same time ( looped ) and moving 6 1⁄2 liter of water at 2800rpm without problems.

 

[Ferrum Master]

gpu stays ice cold?!

But the water gets hot... if condensation appears, something is wrong, I've seen such problems only under extreme heat.

It seems I got the issue... the Zotac is an idiot company it seems... the VRM is not under flow... no wonders it gets hot, the block is designed badly... I have 1080ti under water too btw... but at least my VRM section is under water too.

 

[infrared]

C'mon people, read the first post a bit better. The GPU temp is fine, it's nothing to do with pump speed. Condensation in the res is normal when you're dumping heat into the loop. It's also normal for the card to get hot with no airflow on it, you need to get some airflow going over it as sneekypeet said.

Edit - as ferrum master above said, a waterblock that covers the vrm will be a lot better

 

[Carsomyr]

I just read on the web both the zotac arcticstorm 1080 and 1080 ti are full coverage water blocks

Are you absolutely certain it is not covered? Cause if it's not I'll return the card and get an ek waterblock got my gigabyte aorus xtreme 1080 ti which I was upgrading from

And I quote from zotac website:

"
Game fearlessly. Turn your gaming prowess up to eleven and know no fear with the ZOTAC GeForce® GTX 1080 Ti ArcticStorm. Raise the playing field with the most advanced gaming graphics card ever without fear of hitting the thermal capacity.

The waterblock provides full board coverage and fitted with innovative technologies such as Direct Copper Contact with 0.3mm micro-channels to maximize thermal performance. Discover performance, power efficiency, and gaming experiences with powerful performance and cool thermals.

• G 1/4 Threaded fitting Standard
• 0.3mm micro channels
• 16+2 power phase"

Plus I went with water cooling in the hopes of reducing the amount of fans present in the case and not add more

 

[Sasqui]

The pump is a D5 vario
I was under the impression it was plenty for my loop

I do have some objects that increase resistance yes. But why do you guys think the water flow or temp is the issue of the core of the gpu stays ice cold?!

See picture below
https://imgur.com/gallery/lgHPD
It never passes 40c (core)

You should embed a pic of that in this thread. Truly awesome looking rig. Aside from the VRM possibly not being cooled enough, you probably should have put the radiator in front of the res in your loop, it appears to be the other way around. All the heat is hitting the res before being cooled off.

 

[FireFox]

I just read on the web both the zotac arcticstorm 1080 and 1080 ti are full coverage water blocks

Are you absolutely certain it is not covered? Cause if it's not I'll return the card and get an ek waterblock got my gigabyte aorus xtreme 1080 ti which I was upgrading from

And I quote from zotac website:

"
Game fearlessly. Turn your gaming prowess up to eleven and know no fear with the ZOTAC GeForce® GTX 1080 Ti ArcticStorm. Raise the playing field with the most advanced gaming graphics card ever without fear of hitting the thermal capacity.

The waterblock provides full board coverage and fitted with innovative technologies such as Direct Copper Contact with 0.3mm micro-channels to maximize thermal performance. Discover performance, power efficiency, and gaming experiences with powerful performance and cool thermals.

• G 1/4 Threaded fitting Standard
• 0.3mm micro channels
• 16+2 power phase"

Plus I went with water cooling in the hopes of reducing the amount of fans present in the case and not add more

Maybe you read this one


The card as tested today has the liquid cooling block mounted already, you of course will need to add it into an exsisting liquid cooling loop, so this is not an AIO kit. That block is pure copper with 0.3mm micro-channels (full coverage so the VRM and memory is cooled as well). The graphics card has clock frequencies of 1,772 MHz (boost) / 1,633 (base) MHz, a bit shy but we do expect good tweaking potential. The GDDR5X memory is left at a default clock frequency, 10 GHz (effective data-rate). The ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 ArcticStorm is fitted with dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors but also has been fitted with their Spectra LED lighting. Right, we have enough to talk about and to show, let's head on-wards in the review.

Link: http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/zotac-geforce-gtx-1080-arcticstorm-review,1.html

 

[ERazer]

base on the pic it is full block but the water flow does not cover VRM, as ferrum mentioned as well.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Well... the card itself is not defective... but the block design is not well thought out... VRM is a really hot thing, without moving air the heat will build up... it even doesn't have fins etc... a bonkers creation... even if Zotac wanted such design they should have added a heat pipe leading under the area where is liquid flow just as AIO Radeons does. So that's the first problem.

The picture explains things, the hot water goes directly to the tank, it is normal that vapor will occur, as fluid expands with temperature, and thus pressure in the system too, it drags down the boiling temperature too. So it is only natural. You may solve it by using a longer pipe inside the tank that leads deeper in to the tank thus the hot water runs out deeper and gets sucked in back first... or fill the sucker to the max...

See a proper designed block. It has a route to the VRM section.

 

[newtekie1]

See a proper designed block. It has a route to the VRM section.

The fluid doesn't have to flow over the VRM section for the VRM section to be cooled by the block. The block is going to draw heat away from the VRM, and the fluid flowing through it has more than enough surface area to absorb the heat from the block.

 

[Ferrum Master]

The fluid doesn't have to flow over the VRM section for the VRM section to be cooled by the block. The block is going to draw heat away from the VRM, and the fluid flowing through it has more than enough surface area to absorb the heat from the block.

Well it is obviously not enough as the OP sees in his system. A derp....

I couldn't find any FLIR images with this card really, it could explain things.

 

[infrared]

I couldn't find any FLIR images with this card really, it could explain things.

That would have been good. I'd hazard a guess that the card is at a reasonable temp, at 50c you wouldn't be able to hold your finger on it, but it isn't actually hot enough to do any harm.
If it was my rig I'd make sure there was airflow, but it's not so easy in these very flashy cases, it's all looks over function tbh.

 

[ERazer]

The fluid doesn't have to flow over the VRM section for the VRM section to be cooled by the block. The block is going to draw heat away from the VRM, and the fluid flowing through it has more than enough surface area to absorb the heat from the block.

true but it builds up heat and takes longer for it to cool down hence heat build up thru the back plate.

 

[Carsomyr]

Thank for all the replies guys!

Here are my reactions to your comments:

1. Indeed this build is focused on 3 things
A) performance
B) Looks and aesthetics
C) Silence

Indeed, I've considered adding fans behind the graphics card using a PCI slot mounted setup. But I barely have the space for it. Indeed the case is not optimized for air flow because I had water cooling in mind. I don't understand the comment about the radiator. The radiator evacuates the hot air out the back of the case. Those green fans are blowing through. This rad is an alphacool ut60 480mm. So rather dispersed fins which in turn allows for lower rpms on those fans.

The noise level is flipping amazing.

As for condensation I was running a leak test with max pump speed, maybe the added sucking factor and turbulence doesn't help. Although the backplate doesn't either I'm sure...

As for the zotac, I don't know what judgement to make. Here's my conclusion and I'd like your opinion on that conclusion:

I've read everything I could find about hot backplates only to discover that even people using ek backplates say they get hot backplates too... Apparently ek has a warning on their backplates saying "do not touch... Gets very hot..." so... I'm guessing my problem is to be considered "normal"

The only people not complaining about their backplates either have never touched it or have really good airflow inside the case. Which... At best produces 8-16 degrees less on the backplate (that you could measure in real life) since backplate temps are not monitored in any software as of today. I also noticed a big difference when I don't overclock the memory on the card obviously....

Now as to zotacs design being faulty. I'm not sure. Some of you seem to be convinced the memory is not properly cooled even though the manufacturer clearly states it's a full coverage block... I understand it could be slightly improved upon... But yeah, it's a copper block full coverage so I'd expect better... BUT apparently they all get somewhat hot (them backplates)

So 2 questions remain:

- what if I do nothing? Gpu core temp never passes 48 degrees Celsius and performance is more than stable at 2063mhz/6024mhz

- what would you do in my place?

And finally for the pleasure of your eyes:

 

[Vayra86]

Gotta say I love the way you set up that rig of yours man

Mad respek!

 

[Carsomyr]

Pictures are being uploaded in my previous post. Check em out

Note that some of them are prior to my water cooled 1080 ti. Back when I had the 1080 from Asus

Many sleepless nights on that build
My first water cooling experience ever

 

[newtekie1]

Well it is obviously not enough as the OP sees in his system. A derp....

No, you are just assuming the backplate heat is coming from the VRM.

Condensation in the res means the fluid is getting pretty warm, and that means the components are getting hot. The heat on the backplate could be from the GPU.

 

[Carsomyr]

No, you are just assuming the backplate heat is coming from the VRM.

Condensation in the res means the fluid is getting pretty warm, and that means the components are getting hot. The heat on the backplate could be from the GPU.

How would that be possible when the gpu doesn't ever go above 48c degrees?
I used to get 68-72c on air.

Although I should say my previous two cards (on Air) would also get a hot backplate.

Although this one does it a bit more due to no air flow circulating at all

 

[newtekie1]

How would that be possible when the gpu doesn't ever go above 48c degrees?

That is pretty warm, and if you fluid is getting up near that temperature, that is about the same as the hot water coming out of your sink faucet in some homes.(My hot water heater in my home is set to 43°C.) And you have to think, the hot water from your shower is enough to steam up the mirror in the bathroom.

The backplate is absorbing heat from the card, likely from the GPU VRM and those "Power Boost" caps get pretty warm too. It doesn't take much to for a thin sheet of metal to start to feel hot to the touch.

 

[Carsomyr]

That is pretty warm, and if you fluid is getting up near that temperature, that is about the same as the hot water coming out of your sink faucet in some homes.(My hot water heater in my home is set to 43°C.) And you have to think, the hot water from your shower is enough to steam up the mirror in the bathroom.

The backplate is absorbing heat from the card, likely from the GPU VRM and those "Power Boost" caps get pretty warm too. It doesn't take much to for a thin sheet of metal to start to feel hot to the touch.

Agreed. The card usually stays between 30-42c... Sometimes it goes 44c
Not sure the water is that hot. I do have a water temp sensor I could install
What's a normal water temperature?

 

[newtekie1]

What's a normal water temperature?

There is no normal water temperature, every loop is going to be different.