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Stu · ‎03-23-2012

Hi guys,
Something I have never really looked into and thus dont understand, what benefit comes from watercooling the mobo chipset?

Mine seem to stay between 30 and 40c no matter what use it gets, so what exactly will I gain from lowering this with water?
With CPU/GPU its obvious, but to me, not so with chipsets and power regs.

Please advise. 🙂

Asus Maximus IV Extreme Z
i7 3770K @ 4.4ghz
AMD 7970 HD x3 in TriFire @ 1200/1800.
2x 240GHZ OCZ Vertex 3 SSD & 1x 512Gb Vertex 4
16GB 2133mhz Patriot DDR3
Ennermax Max Revo 1500w PSU
Huge water loop with an internal EK 340mm & external Supernova 1260mm
Windows 7 64 bit.
Aquaero Fan control & monitoring

HiVizMan · ‎03-23-2012

If you are clocking the heck out of your CPU using water or Air cooling you will need it. If you are cooling your CPU using LN2 when benching the CPU at max clocks you will not need any cooling to the VRM area. Most folks are not even aware their system is throttling because of the heat issued from the VRM at some of the more extreme settings.

To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

Stu · ‎03-23-2012

HiVizMan wrote:
If you are clocking the heck out of your CPU using water or Air cooling you will need it. If you are cooling your CPU using LN2 when benching the CPU at max clocks you will not need any cooling to the VRM area. Most folks are not even aware their system is throttling because of the heat issued from the VRM at some of the more extreme settings.

Thanks, how can we tell when they are getting too hot?
My case internals are hovering around ambient now, certainly never hotter than 27C, so its pretty cool in there with pretty good airflow.

Asus Maximus IV Extreme Z
i7 3770K @ 4.4ghz
AMD 7970 HD x3 in TriFire @ 1200/1800.
2x 240GHZ OCZ Vertex 3 SSD & 1x 512Gb Vertex 4
16GB 2133mhz Patriot DDR3
Ennermax Max Revo 1500w PSU
Huge water loop with an internal EK 340mm & external Supernova 1260mm
Windows 7 64 bit.
Aquaero Fan control & monitoring

HiVizMan · ‎03-23-2012

Stu @ MSD wrote:
Thanks, how can we tell when they are getting too hot?
My case internals are hovering around ambient now, certainly never hotter than 27C, so its pretty cool in there with pretty good airflow.

Stu you are good to go. Most folks do not have good case cooling as a rule. What you have temp wise is how it should be. 😞

To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

Area_66 · ‎03-23-2012

Hiviz , can you really reach the thermal limit of the VRM with a 2600k on air ? ( I ask because I'm not the kind to go on air for OC ) On water it’s more important especially if you have no air flow around the VRM, but I guess many will reach the CPU wall before need to WC the VRM ( at condition to have air flow of course ) It's also depend on what you are doing, as you show in your very good post, PSU draw more on torture test than Gaming, so if you are folding 24/7 with a CPU over 5.0 , WC the VRM will not hurt, but for regular gaming ? But it'S DAM sexy a board with a full block

HiVizMan · ‎03-23-2012

I have seen some of the air coolers that people are using and they are not up to the job of cooling the CPU correctly never mind providing sufficient airflow over the rest of the board, and then still try to do a 5.4GHz over clock and run Prime stable for 48hours. And simultaneously wanting a silent system. 😄 😄

So they use a cooler that makes less noise than a butterfly farting, and dial all their case fans right back to the minumum in BIOS - yet still want top performance. So yes I have seen people hurt their system. The MIVE is one of the best boards for managing VRM temps but no motherboard is bullet proof.

My comment about the throttling was aimed at a much wider user base not just the MIVE user. I might have been a lot clearer than I was after reading my reply again.

To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

Area_66 · ‎03-23-2012

Ya HiViz good point not everyone are worry as me with the temp of their CPU and VRM, I forget sometime that peoples run CPU at 85'C, I'm not well place to say to not worry about the cooling, I always overkill the cooling and the PSU too.

HiVizMan · ‎03-23-2012

You and me both. When I do my over-clocking course and benching workshops the one thing I say to all the guys attending is let temps be your guide. I heard that a 100 times from my benching guru so I know it is good advice.

To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.

Stu · ‎03-23-2012

Thanks guys, I also am anal about cooling and even have a software sensor setup in my Aqua computer that watches for a differential between ambient and case temps. If the case temps exceed ambient by 3 deg C the fans kick in regardless of what that case internal temperature is as I know, at that pont, it could be improved a little.

Asus Maximus IV Extreme Z
i7 3770K @ 4.4ghz
AMD 7970 HD x3 in TriFire @ 1200/1800.
2x 240GHZ OCZ Vertex 3 SSD & 1x 512Gb Vertex 4
16GB 2133mhz Patriot DDR3
Ennermax Max Revo 1500w PSU
Huge water loop with an internal EK 340mm & external Supernova 1260mm
Windows 7 64 bit.
Aquaero Fan control & monitoring

Stu · ‎01-07-2013

Revisiting this topic - how do you guys measure your VRM temperatures?

Now I have a 3770K in there I have found my VRM heatsink measuring up to 60 deg C. On the previous 2600K it was less, which is odd as that was using less voltage on the overclock... go figure, but all the same, its got me wondering just how to reliably measure and make the decision that I dont have enough cooling?

Asus Maximus IV Extreme Z
i7 3770K @ 4.4ghz
AMD 7970 HD x3 in TriFire @ 1200/1800.
2x 240GHZ OCZ Vertex 3 SSD & 1x 512Gb Vertex 4
16GB 2133mhz Patriot DDR3
Ennermax Max Revo 1500w PSU
Huge water loop with an internal EK 340mm & external Supernova 1260mm
Windows 7 64 bit.
Aquaero Fan control & monitoring

Maximus Extreme IV-Z Chipset Water Cooling. Worth it?