Topic: Anyone watercooling GPU mining rig? (Read 16639 times)

This went up on Youtube a few months back....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-A_NlkGvbM

Can you list the components for your water cooling setup? The Radiator looks pretty good. Looking at adding to my dual GPU setup. Right now, the setup I have is keeping the cards at 55C - 65C. It was made for a CPU not dual GPU so it pretty much is like air cooling.

Thanks for any info. Like your pictures you liked to.

 Thank you for perspective. I will examine options for water cooling maybe one rig. Afraid of leaks lol !

I have to agree here. While the cost does rise in construction, most of the 5970 h20 rigs ive built run no higher than 40* on any core, and do not mess around when it comes to stability.

My waterblocks have paid for themselves by making the GPUs run colder and use less power.  Warm silicon leaks more.  Other than the water blocks, liquid cooling is almost free.  A pump don't have to cost more than 20 USD.  Tubes and stuff cost less than a replacement fan.  As a bonus you can place your miner anywhere and dump the heat anywhere.

Mining heats my house without making noise.  Here is an old post with outdated pictures of my setup.  The WAF of this setup is very high, and you get a nice excuse for buying more mining gear! :-)

No sense make to cool with water. Cost too much monies and eat into profit.

Allthough it could not really be categorised as a mining-rig, my 6990 is mining 24/7, running @ 980 @ 45°
Difference with standard clocks is around 30-40Mhash for me (per core)


If you like there's more pictures here: http://users.telenet.be/undergod2/pics/devil/
;-)

I am using water cooling primarily for noise issues. Since I run my rigs in my office at work, I need to minimize my noise levels so I can still work at the same time.

Watercooling it's too expensive... but if you have money, everything is possible

water cooling is fun. So to say that I built a machine for a client that is 3x5970s running over dual 4x120mm radiators. Thing looks like a beast and the  temps dont reach above 34* on two cards in parallel. I still want to see what the temps are on a 3 card setup (one card shipped DOA so we are working on a replacement)

Where water cooling starts getting costly is all the extra crap you need. For this build, that mean 2 kooliance radiators, 8 130cfm fans, 2 fan controllers, pump, resivoir, barbs and fittings, clamps, hose, switch and relays for the 2nd psu that powers the pumps and fans so it can run with the system down, not to metion that there is still gpus, blocks, LOADS of articsilver, and all the time spent on seal testing, flow and everything else that goes into it.
At the end of the day, you do have a very stable and powerful system. It cost a bit more to do, but if you can afford it and want something that will last you, they work out great.

Out of my experiance, I love the EK blocks the most, mainly the FC5970. They are solid full card blocks with great documentation and instructions. A while back I was talking to someone on here who was running 4u server racks with 3x5970s water cooled with a 4x120mm radiator mounted above each 4u taking a total of 7u for only 3 cards. This was repeated 5 times over and placed into a 45u rack. Sexiest thing I have ever seen in my life.

Got waterblocks bundled with 2 5970s I bought second hand. Have note used them yet though as I lack the supporting hardware (Pump, radiators etc.).

My mining operation setup consists of just a 7970 (1275 MHz core) so far.  Since I sleep in the same and only room that my machine is running for 24/7, I water cool to increase the clock to a certain level of efficiency, and to keep the noise down to the point of absolute quietness.  Other than that, watercooling can be expensive unless planned carefully.

Semiconductor failure rates typically double for each 10C increase in operating temperature. 

You can get sub 65C on air easily with most cards, particularly 5850s like you mention, at least if room temperature is not summer hot. None of my 5850s run hotter than 65C and using an extreme air cooler (Spitfire) I even got one of my 5870s down to 34C (12C above room temperature) with virtually no noise. Granted, thats not cost effective either, but still cheaper than watercooling.

As to answer your question; yes, proper cooling should increase the longevity of your cards, but by how much is impossible to tell.
Even so the potential for a positive ROI just isnt there. Judging by reports on this forum, Im guestimating an average failure rate of less than 10% per year on HD 58x0 cards, probably even less than 5% if you ignore fan failures and mishandling. That gives you a ballpark estimate on how much ROI spending on watercooling could be worth in that regard; no more than 5-10% of the cost of the card even when generously assuming watercooling were to eliminate 100% of all failures.

In short: no, its not worth it from that perspective.

Won't water cooling extend the useful life of the GPU's?
The hotter a semiconductor gets the more it breaks down, no?

Let's say a 5850 working at 400MH/s without water cooling, temps maybe 80-90C, while the same card water cooled producing the same hash rate would probably be 60-70C. Would the 20C difference extend the life of the card enough to justify the water cooling investment?

haha im using my mining rig as a heater

I doubt it is the pump.  Anything more than 1 gpm (after restrictions) is a waste for cooling.  You just need the water fast enough to be turbulent.  Just 1 gpm of water is enough to transfer 250W per 1C rise in temp. 

4x6990 is going to dump almost a 1 KW of heat.  That requires a significant radiator.   

I have an old water-cooled gaming rig that I re-purposed into a BTC mining rig:

ASUS Rampage III Extreme + Danger Den chipset waterblock (no link anymore)

Core i7 940 - no OC anymore; cooled by Danger Den waterblock (http://www.dangerden.com/store/mc-tdx-block-for-lga-1156-i3-i5-i7.html)

GPU 1: Powercolor LCS 5870 V2: 1300 mV stock voltage, 1080MHz core - 478MH/s (BIOS limited to 1100, runs stable but I opt not to), 600MHz memory (http://www.fudzilla.com/graphics/item/19599-powercolor-rolls-out-its-second-water-cooled-hd-5870)

GPU 2/3: Diamond 5970, 1050mV stock voltage both cores, 800MHz Core 0 - 358MH/s, 775MHz Core1 - 353MH/s - Phoenix 2 beta, 500MHz memory (no watercooling) (not special so I won't link)

GPU 4: XFX 5870, @1100mV (1060mV stock voltage), 975 MHz - 428 MH/s, 600MHz memory (Danger Den full coverage waterblock -only fits reference boards which don't exist anymore - http://www.dangerden.com/store/dd-summit-block-for-5870-and-5850.html) (modded 5870 BIOS used to unlock core frequency and voltage)

Total = ~1.61GH/s, have not measured power consumption sorry!
Temps of two watercooled 5970s average around 40-45*C, using 1/2" tubing and two 2x120mm radiators. CPU temp is about 5* cooler than warmest watercool GPU
For reference the 5970 is running at 77-81*C with the fan set to 55% (very loud, puts out more noise than pump plus 4 120mm fans on radiators)

I don't personally think the Watercooling is worth it, especially if you plan on running 24/7 you don't want your pump to fail when your not around. I'm taking a risk running my rig, I consider it expendable at this point, minus the 5970 which is running on air anyway.

I managed to get the second 5970 which is a reference board from XFX to 975 MHz with only a .04 bump in voltage - the powercolor GPU which is running 105MHz, or about 50MH/s faster, is also running at .2 volts more, which is a fairly significant bump.

I was doing dual 6990's water-cooled, with an active pump, and a Zalman Reserator (with fan). After about 4 months of consistent use I can say it is not worth the hassle/ time/ money / hazard that comes from running high powered video cards at max settings with even the strongest pump (I paid over $100 for mine) or the best cooling mechanism.

Bottom line is, it's not as stable as getting some fan cooled cards. Or better yet some FPGA's (need more money upfront, better long term )

Yeah my wife likes mining in the winter.  She likes sitting in my office because it gets up to 80F or so.  She plants seeds in trays in the garage in the winter (just the legal kind) to put in the flower beds in the spring.  The miners there keep the garage (and plants) nice and warm.

Come middle of summer her attitude towards mining seems to change though.