meh.. my corsair H100 keeps my 3960x super cool. if i was watercooling my GPUs, i would get a real setup so everything can be hooked to the same pump.
I'd be running a true high end air cooler on my CPU instead of the closed looped system I have now. The ASRock Extreme11's tight arrangement prohibited that from happening.
meh.. my corsair H100 keeps my 3960x super cool. if i was watercooling my GPUs, i would get a real setup so everything can be hooked to the same pump.
if i had that much money to waste it wouldnt be on graphics cards.
You need to work on your imagination skills
if i had that much money to waste it wouldnt be on graphics cards.
You need to work on your imagination skills
If I had those requirements, then sure, I'd water it up.
I don't have those requirements and likely never will. The stock air cooler was designed around my requirements.
You will find that the stock cooling is quite limiting in what the hardware is capable of. Especially if you pour on the juice (1.2V) and go up and over 1.2GHz you will hit 90°C in no time on the air cooler.
However if you're running stock (as long as you have strong airflow) the stock BIOS and boost levels should be fine but throttling is still possible!
I don't need 1.2V and didn't ever expected to get 1.2GHz. Anything over 1GHz is fine. Air cooled operating temps have never scared me. Even when I was running 3-Way GTX 480s on stock air cooling.
Not everyone that buys these cards are going to fit into the predefined usage scenario you envisioned. We're all variable. What you want is not what I want. To think that everyone who buys these cards requires water cooling is just crazy.
Titans will throttle regardless of air or water with the current issue with the over-aggressive throttling mechanisms in place on the card.
Unless you run one of the custom BIOS to over-ride it, you'll have to deal with that throttling. People who are using the custom BIOS are doing fine on air, yes they are getting high temperatures, but nothing air can't handle. Reading results at OCN from water and air coolers, everyone is getting the same general range topping out their OCs; 1150 to 1250Mhz.
Titan is just like GK104 in that you can't raise voltages beyond what is hardlocked on the cards, 1.21V, so you're not going to get the ability to crank voltages for better clocks while keeping temperatures in check with water cooling. Honestly, I think in terms of actual overclock gains from watercooling, you're looking at 10-30Mhz at best just in gains from lower operating temperatures of the silicon. This might be a bit more of an amplified gain if we are discussing SLI and sandwiched air-cooled GPUs. I still think you are talking very minimal clock gains though.
I water cool mine purely for silence and aesthetics. I like building a cool looking system that is silent.
LC will keep you below that point.
Increasing voltage to 1.2 or beyond on air is insane. Even overriding the fan to 100% (loud but not quite 7970 loud!) will still throttle eventually but most aren't going to want to be near the noise.
Out of the box performance is just fine but a lot of people are upset that it's capable of considerably more but out of practical reach without spending more. Not to mention with a few simple changes and reboots they can see the tangible increase but throttle shatters the dream. It's like being buried to your neck in the Sahara and someone has placed water inches from your reach and occasionally sprays a few ml in your face every few min to tease you!
lol
The card is already insane in terms of performance. This is the first setup where I've really felt like it is complete overkill, so much more power than I can use, and this is at 2560x1600. I only game with my computer, I guess some people could probably use the power for those GPGPU specific applications.
If Titan was like Fermi and we had a card with tons of power phases with unlocked voltage control it would be ridiculously fast with a large over-volt/clock. An MSI Titan Lightning would be amazing.
Comparing 480 to Titan is apples to oranges. The cards will throttle like mad once you hit (and you will) 80C. This will put you in the 833MHz range. With four cards that will cripple performance greatly and is a far cry from your 1GHz+ goal. When the cards start out in the 30s to 40s from idle you will have no problems but it doesn't take long to hit the magic 80 and you will see performance drop. With liquid cooling you become power limited vs. thermal limited. There are BIOS mods that lift the artificial limit (there is still a hard limit to protect VRMs for sure!). Some also say ASIC quality is a key but I'm not thoroughly convinced. It's argued that if you cool with air you want a higher ASIC quality (80%+). Most cards are in the mid 70s and some even lower in the 60s.
The samples I've worked with are in the mid 70s and are quite warm on air when pushed.
I can see why one would want to dismiss liquid cooling after spending $4 on GPU however it's (almost) like spending $140k for a Ferrari but rolling on bias ply tires! You can still drive but you're not going to get what it's capable of. 4X SLI is quite extreme and proper LC would allow the cards to run at 1100-1200 (depending on silicon obviously) without throttling. Some may need 1.2V to get there and if you do LC is going to be able to keep temps (and ultimately performance killing throttling) under control.
The crux of the matter is Titan is a monster and to get the best performance out of it under the most demanding conditions for long use means liquid cooling is a requirement not an option.
Felt a little inadequate with the GTX 680s?
I'm happy with the default BIOS. What's in the modded BIOS?
Comparing 480 to Titan is apples to oranges. The cards will throttle like mad once you hit (and you will) 80C. This will put you in the 833MHz range. With four cards that will cripple performance greatly and is a far cry from your 1GHz+ goal. When the cards start out in the 30s to 40s from idle you will have no problems but it doesn't take long to hit the magic 80 and you will see performance drop. With liquid cooling you become power limited vs. thermal limited. There are BIOS mods that lift the artificial limit (there is still a hard limit to protect VRMs for sure!). Some also say ASIC quality is a key but I'm not thoroughly convinced. It's argued that if you cool with air you want a higher ASIC quality (80%+). Most cards are in the mid 70s and some even lower in the 60s.
The samples I've worked with are in the mid 70s and are quite warm on air when pushed.
I can see why one would want to dismiss liquid cooling after spending $4 on GPU however it's (almost) like spending $140k for a Ferrari but rolling on bias ply tires! You can still drive but you're not going to get what it's capable of. 4X SLI is quite extreme and proper LC would allow the cards to run at 1100-1200 (depending on silicon obviously) without throttling. Some may need 1.2V to get there and if you do LC is going to be able to keep temps (and ultimately performance killing throttling) under control.
The crux of the matter is Titan is a monster and to get the best performance out of it under the most demanding conditions for long use means liquid cooling is a requirement not an option.
Had some time to actually play some games today. Did some BF3 with the Titans. Never drop below 65fps, ever. Turned off frame rate cap and for the most part sat well over 100fps. Ridiculous.
Disabled SLI and used one OC Titan and for the most part still always at 60fps apart from heavy firefights, then 40fps. Pretty much how 680sli performed for me. The only game that pushes them is Crysis 3, and even that is pretty much 60fps at all times with 4xMSAA. Titan SLI is really only going to be worth it for 3 monitors or if you must use SGSSAA in games. Can't imagine how four are going to perform if they scale well...