cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Liquid cooling an Asus GTX Titan Black - question

Indru
Level 8
Hello,
So I am currently building this system. What I have so far is this:

Full System Specs:
Cooler Master Cosmos II case
Asus Maximus VI Formula MoBo
Intel i7 4770k CPU
Noctua NH-D14 cooler for CPU
G-Skill Trident X 2100 ram (4x8 gig sticks)
Cooler Master Silent Pro Hybrid 1300W

I want to buy a GTX Titan Black, preferably from Asus. Now, the thing is, I want to switch to liquid cooling, both for my CPU and Graphic Card.

The current Titan Black model for Asus has air cooling.

Question: If I buy a waterblock compatible with the Titan Black, and switch it with the air cooling solution the card already has, will I lose my warranty on the video card because of removing the air cooling?

If so, is there a workaround for this somehow? The alternative would be an EVGA Hydro Copper Titan Black, but I would have liked to stick to Asus, since my MoBo is Asus and on my previous configuration I had EVGA both for MoBo and Graphic Card, and suffice to say I was not impressed (MoBo started having issues after 1 year of use, random hard freezes that couldn't be fixed whatever I did, and they were only happening in games, so when I sent it to service they said it had no problems, because technically it was working and they couldn't replicate the hard freezes for some reason. Graphic card still works though, GTX 280, and was bought in 2008).

So, if there is someone who has done this kind of thing previously and would like to share, I'd appreciate all the help I can get.

Thank you!
305 Views
5 REPLIES 5

Arne_Saknussemm
Level 40
Hi Indru 🙂

Yes, technically you will void your waranty I'm afraid. Though I have to say all the Titan Blacks are the same from whatever manufacturer...they are simply boxed by ASUS or EVGA etc. after coming off the Nvidia production line.

http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?44929-Pitch-Black&p=382961&viewfull=1#post382961

Arne Saknussemm wrote:
Hi Indru 🙂

Yes, technically you will void your waranty I'm afraid. Though I have to say all the Titan Blacks are the same from whatever manufacturer...they are simply boxed by ASUS or EVGA etc. after coming off the Nvidia production line.

http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?44929-Pitch-Black&p=382961&viewfull=1#post382961


Hello and thank you for your feedback! Looks like I'll buy the EVGA Hydro Copper instead of the Asus. I don't know, I'll keep thinking, but I know for sure I don't want to void any warranties whatsoever, so either I stick to air cooling for the GPU and liquid for CPU and MoBo, or I put my money with EVGA. These two seem the only viable options right now. 😛

Indru wrote:
Hello and thank you for your feedback! Looks like I'll buy the EVGA Hydro Copper instead of the Asus. I don't know, I'll keep thinking, but I know for sure I don't want to void any warranties whatsoever, so either I stick to air cooling for the GPU and liquid for CPU and MoBo, or I put my money with EVGA. These two seem the only viable options right now. 😛


I know it'll be a pain, and it'll potentially mean building your system twice to some extent, but you really should do this anyway, even if your card has an inbuilt liquid cooling solution, such as my Poseidon Platinum GTX 780 does.

Build your system up and run it for a few days with just air cooling. Of course you don't want to be overclocking at this stage, nor would you want to, as you should be testing that everything works before you tinker with it. When you are happy that it works, you can then water cool it. Now, this doesn't get around the issue of voiding your warranty, but at least you know everything works. If you were to just water cool it without testing it, and is was faulty, and I mean faulty, you didn't break it, then you can't do anything about it. At least performing this step eliminates that part of it.

If it works out of the box for a few days on air, it really shouldn't fail for the foreseeable future. That is to say that personally, I haven't had anything fail inside its warranty period if it has worked out of the box. That's not to say it won't, but it shouldn't. With my card, it doesn't void my warranty if I connect it up to the loop, but I still tested it on air first, in case it happened to be faulty. Why? because it's even more inconvenient having to drain my loop to remove the card, refill and bleed and have my computer down for a couple of days where I could be gaming, than it is to just run it on air for a few days to a week to test it.

At the end of the day, it's your choice. I am like you, I would want the ASUS one too if I was going to get one, and I'd also want to water cool it. I would do so, but not until I've put it through some stress tests and a few hours of gaming before I took it apart to make sure the card is sound. It also means that whist you have it apart, you can put some high quality thermal compound on it before you mount the water block. I have seen plenty of reviews etc where they don't rate the thermal paste that comes on most components very highly. In fact, some OCD ppl will test their card as I described, then pull it apart and replace the thermal paste, even if they have no intention of fitting a water block.

If you do these tests, and it fails after you water cool it, It'll more than likely be something you have done, and no, it won't be covered by warranty. If you haven't fitted a water block to a GPU before, go and check out some videos on you tube. It isn't hard, but you should still watch them. Also, if you DO get the ASUS card, and end up putting a block on it keep this in mind. If the card has thermal pads on it anywhere BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN YOU REMOVE THEM, KEEP THEM CLEAN AND OFF TO THE SIDE. I say this, because when you put thermal paste on, it might not actually contact the water block in the areas where the pads were, so if it doesn't, wipe off the paste, and use the pads in those areas instead.

This shouldn't be a problem, the water block should contact all areas when using thermal paste instead of any preexisting pads, but just check it does before you throw it into your system.

Let us know how you get on man, and what you chose to do.

Cheers 🙂

twisted1
Level 12
I've RMA'd several cards that I've removed the stock cooler from, even ones that had stickers that were clearly broken from me changing the cooler. No problemo so far.

Retired
Not applicable
A plier, and turn, not a philips screwdriver..:cool:

Ops