In the event you’ve simply splashed $2,000+ of money on the quickest GPU on the planet, which incorporates one of the crucial spectacular coolers we’ve ever seen on a graphics card, clearly the very first thing you’re going to need to do is disassemble all of it and water-cool it, proper? Okay, so this mod may not be for everybody, however in the event you do need to water-cool your Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Version, you possibly can relaxation assured that the outcomes are value it.
With our Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 overview proving that Nvidia‘s newest flagship is certainly the very best graphics card you should purchase, many would possibly suppose there’s little have to attempt to squeeze extra efficiency out of the cardboard, particularly as its default cooler runs comparatively cool and quiet. Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped one firm from seeing simply what could be achieved by water-cooling Nvidia’s personal RTX 5090 Founders Version.
The corporate courageous sufficient to tackle this endeavor is Thermal Grizzly, a maker of all kinds of cooling tools for CPUs and GPUs, which simply final week introduced an RTX 5090 graphene thermal pad. Now the corporate is again with its newest RTX 5090-focused potential product, which is the primary water cooling block designed particularly for the RTX 5090 Founders Version.
What makes this job so notable is that the Nvidia card not solely has a remarkably good cooler already, however that it makes use of a flow-through design meaning the cardboard’s PCB sits in-between two followers that blow air via the cardboard. Which means when you disassemble the cooler to get to the PCB – to place the water cooling block on the GPU – you’re left with out an precise card.
As a substitute, the cardboard is made up of three separate PCBs which are hooked up to the cooler and linked by ribbon cables. This implies the water cooling block itself has to grow to be the mounting body on which to reattach all of the elements of the unique card, as proven above.
Regardless of all these causes to not do it, with the FE card prone to be the preferred possibility amongst RTX 5090 patrons, the parents at Thermal Grizzly got down to show that the duty was a minimum of doable, and show it they did, through the corporate proprietor’s YouTube channel, der8auer, hosted by Roman “der8auer” Hartung.
With the completely lovely-looking stable copper block mounted to the cardboard, and the water loop hooked as much as the channel’s large water cooling radiator and fan setup, the GPU temperature dropped from a mean of 72.5°C to only 48.3°C whereas underneath full, sustained load. In the meantime, the reminiscence temperature additionally plummeted from 88.3°C to 57.7°C. The temperatures after water cooling are proven beneath.
These temperature drops have been much more dramatic when the block was initially put in, with the GPU hitting simply 24°C and the reminiscence simply 34°C. Nevertheless, after quarter-hour of load testing, the water cooling loop’s liquid warmed up, ensuing within the above temperatures. As der8auer factors out, this setup continues to be pumping 530W of heating energy into the water.
Not solely are these numbers usually spectacular however they resulted in on the spot efficiency beneficial properties too. The typical GPU clock velocity underneath load went from 2,655.1MHz to 2,679.7MHz, which is simply a modest improve however that is with no further effort in any respect – the GPU simply pushed itself to this greater velocity. What’s extra, der8auer thinks that overclocking “might be doable” with this cooling setup.
As for the trickiness of this mod, der8auer charges it as a stable 8.5/10 on his personal modding problem scale, stating that eradicating some elements of the cooler may be very difficult whereas additionally noting the necessity to warmth up adhesives to take away the ribbon cables. Der8auer additionally notes the delicacy of the PCB that acts because the PCIe connector, with the prototype mannequin leaving this unsupported (proven beneath). Nevertheless, he factors out that if there’s a retail model of the block, this would come with a help for this part, plus he additionally suggests the entire block wouldn’t be stable copper however partly aluminum.
Would you be tempted to tackle a GPU mod like this? In the event you be a part of our group Discord you possibly can tell us your ideas there. Or, for extra on the advantages of water cooling, take a look at our prime liquid cooler picks in our greatest AIO cooler information. You can too observe us on Google Information for each day PC video games information, critiques, and guides.
