Benchmarks show direct water on die cooling with no heat spreader outperforms AIO liquid cooling on a GPU

TrashBench on YouTube, known for doing crazy experiments with computer hardware, did his riskiest test yet, benchmarking a GPU cooled by nothing but water touching the GPU die itself. This "direct water cooling" method surprisingly worked and proved to be very effective, producing better temperatures than AIO liquid cooling.

To make this type of cooling solution possible, TrashBench had to create a fully custom cooling solution that wouldn't short-circuit the GPU and wouldn't let water leak onto the PCB. After a few failed tries on a dead RTX 3060, the YouTuber found a working solution featuring a 3D-printed block with adhesive sandwiched between the block and substrate to prevent water from leaking into the main PCB. Nail polish was used to protect the capacitors around the GPU from short-circuiting. After leak testing the makeshift cooling solution on the dead 3060, TrashBench conducted a cooling test on a working GTX 980 to ensure the cooling system can produce cool enough temperatures under a thermal load.

For benchmarking, TrashBench applied his makeshift cooling solution to an RTX 2060 Super hooked up to a Core i5-7600K test rig and tested the cooling solution against AIO cooling and the GPU's stock air-cooling. In Unigine Heaven, stock cooling achieved 70C, AIO cooling achieved 36C, direct water achieved 28C, and direct water with a freezer achieved 13C. Cyberpunk 2077 showed similar results with the RTX 2060 Super running cooler with direct water than on AIO cooling.

The test was so successful that TrashBench also opted to test the same "direct-water" cooling solution on the Core i5-7600K powering his test bench. This time the AIO cooler won, achieving 39C in Cinebench R23, compared to direct water, which "only" achieved 52C. Even though the cooling behavior was the opposite of the GPU results, the direct water cooling solution was more than sufficient to cool the chip.

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Question #1

What specific GPUs and CPU did TrashBench test with the direct water-on-die setup?

TrashBench tried his direct water-on-die setup on a dead NVIDIA RTX 3060 during leak-testing, then ran a thermal-load test on a working GTX 980. For benchmarking, he applied the setup to an NVIDIA RTX 2060 Super. The CPU used in his test rig was an Intel Core i5-7600K.

Answered

Question #2

What materials and modifications did TrashBench use to prevent short circuits and PCB leaks in the DIY block?

TrashBench used a 3D-printed block with adhesive sandwiched between the block and the substrate to stop water leaking into the main PCB. He also applied nail polish to protect the capacitors around the GPU from short-circuiting.

Answered

Question #3

How did the direct water-on-die solution perform on the Core i5-7600K versus the AIO in Cinebench R23?

On the Core i5-7600K in Cinebench R23 the AIO cooler achieved 39C, while the direct water-on-die solution reached 52C. Thus the AIO outperformed the direct water cooling on that CPU, although the direct water was still sufficient to cool the chip.

Answered

Question #4

What differences did TrashBench note between GPU and CPU cooling effectiveness with direct fluid contact on the die?

TrashBench found direct water contact on the GPU die outperformed AIO and stock cooling, with Unigine Heaven results of stock 70C, AIO 36C, direct water 28C, and direct water plus a freezer 13C. By contrast, when he tested the same direct-water method on a Core i5-7600K CPU the AIO won, achieving 39C in Cinebench R23 versus 52C for direct water. Thus the experiment showed direct-fluid-on-die cooling worked best on the GPU but was less effective than an AIO on the tested CPU.

Answered

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The YouTuber's testing shows that using cooling fluid itself to extract heat directly from a GPU die is a highly effective cooling method. Traditional waterblocks use a heatspreader and thermal paste, thermal metal, or a thermal pad to transfer heat from the GPU die to the radiator. It remains unclear if we will ever see this type of cooling solution in a retail product, but TrashBench's experiment proves it works and works best on GPUs.