{"slug": "watercooling-r9700-ai-pro", "title": "Watercooling R9700 AI pro", "summary": "A Level1Techs forum user named Mora installed an Alphacool single-slot water block on an AMD R9700 AI Pro GPU, reporting the card runs completely silent afterward with coil whine eliminated. Mora noted the stock GPU-side cooler required heating to 80C for 5 minutes on a 3D printer bed to release, that the block's ports are too close together for large fittings like EK Quantum Torque, and that FurMark runs showed throttling with no normal case airflow. Forum user Agent9 said Alphacool does not plan a block for Gigabyte R9700 cards and did not add an active backplate to cool all the memory.", "body_md": "[Mora](https://forum.level1techs.com/u/Mora)\n1\n \nJust installed a water block and thought i’d post this in case anyone else is doing the same.\n\nPretty simple process.\n\nWaterblock is from Alphacool. Single slot, active cooling on gpu side only. Back side is passive cooling.\n\nThe clip in the pic below slides to the left to open.\n\n1 of the screws for the power socket is only reachable after everything else is undone.\n\nWarranty void sticker.\n\nThe stock back plate came off pretty easily, but the gpu side was stuck pretty solid, i put it heat sink down in my 3d printer for 5mins with the bed on 80c and it popped off pretty easy. Don’t pry it just apply even pressure and it will release.\n\nOne thing to note, the ports are very close together, i use 16mm soft tube and the big connectors like the ek quantum torque will not fit (though they are great fittings). You will need to use something like the corsair hydro x fittings, or just get from alphacool when you get the block.\n\n \n3 Likes\n\n \n[Mora](https://forum.level1techs.com/u/Mora)\n2\n \nInitial before and after temps. But it’s completely silent now. Even the coil whine is gone, unless it’s already deafened me and i just can’t hear it anymore, which is a distinct possibility.\n\n \n3 Likes\n\n \nHow does it look under full load? FurMark on my stock card throttles until blower PID catches up, if I did not set LACT to plain fan curve.\n\n \n\n \n[Mora](https://forum.level1techs.com/u/Mora)\n4\n \nSeems to behave odd in Furmark. The top screenshot is LM studios working through a prompt & response. The next 2 are furmark, i’m running on auto for the clocks & it looks to be throttling quite a bit.\n\nI don’t have any normal airflow currently, it’s in Tower 900 case laying on it’s back to clear air locks & I haven’t stood the heavy thing back up yet. Could use a fan on the memory.\n\n \n2 Likes\n\n \n[Agent9](https://forum.level1techs.com/u/Agent9)\n5\n \nGlad they actually followed through on releasing these blocks. A shame I bought Gigabyte R9700s so the blocks are incompatible and according to the forum post Alphacool doesn’t plan to make a block for it.\n\nBut they ignored the forum posts asking them to do an active backplate or something to cool all the memory.\n\nHopefully someone else makes some blocks as well.\n\n \n\n \n[Mora](https://forum.level1techs.com/u/Mora)\n6\n \nYeah I saw that request. I think they were more concerned with making it single slot. It’s tiny compared to the alphacool block on my 6900.\n\nProbably too far into development to change at that point too. Sucks about the gigabyte cards. I was lucky enough to see the list they were planning them for before I bought mine.\n\nMan I hate RGB, I need to stop buying stuff that glows, often the best deals unfortunately.\n\n \n2 Likes\n\n \n[Agent9](https://forum.level1techs.com/u/Agent9)\n7\n \nSo far I have had great luck with OpenRGB running light on resources, auto starting and loading a set profile, ect… I use it to run a static color, but you can command specific LEDs/ all of them off.\n\n \n\n \n[Mora](https://forum.level1techs.com/u/Mora)\n8\n \nOpenRGB worked well for the motherboard lights and anything connected to a header, but that RAM refuses to turn off.\n\n \n1 Like\n\n \n[Agent9](https://forum.level1techs.com/u/Agent9)\n9\n \nI had to get a separate plug in, PawnIO and only then did it work for my memory modules after installing that and a rescan of devices.\n\n \n\n \n[jdrch](https://forum.level1techs.com/u/jdrch)\n10\n \nMan, there’s no way I’m doing that to either of my RTXes with Nvidia EOLing the 5090 and 5080. Glad you were able to, though!\n\nAnother limitation I have is I never planned for 2 AIOs. I think I’d have to switch to a custom loop to make that work.\n\n \n\n \n[Mash](https://forum.level1techs.com/u/Mash)\n11\n \nThanks for the detailed pictures of the process.\n\nUnfortunate of the RGB : ), lovely no-nonsense EPDM hoses*, I use them as well with some big NexXxoS XT45 radiator in custom 19\" rack mount, Eisdecke D5 Dual brass top**(x2 VPP755 pumps), with the Powercolor R9700 to be added in the loop.\n\n*first some sampled from EKWB, ending up just buying them from some local rubber EPDM hose semi business/retailer combined with EKWB fittings, it saves costs and allows mixing 10/13 and 10/16 tubing.\n\n**If you buy, remove/sandpaper the paint from the inside of the pump house so it’s pure brass touching water, or flakes of paint will end up in your loop.\n\nI see a some concerns about the passive VRAM cooling on the back, how is it holding up for you?\n\n \n\n \nThanks OP. My biggest pain point with this card has been the 64db noise level since its in my livingroom. Any chance you would share what pump, res, rad you are using?\n\n \n\n \n[Mora](https://forum.level1techs.com/u/Mora)\n13\n \nThe vram is still running just as warm as on air, around 70c under full load. Sitting a fan next to it dropped it 5c. I  think it will improve once its in a case with decent air flow.\n\n \n\n \n[Mora](https://forum.level1techs.com/u/Mora)\n14\n \nI’m using stuff in an existing build, ek revo dual d5 pump, 2 560mm x 58mm thick ek rads and noctua a14 ppc industrial fans- those get louder than the blower fan when you max them out, but they barely need to run.\n\n \n\n \nWould these blocks allow the card(s) to fit into a shorter chassis? Something like the 45 Drives HL15?\n\n \n\n \nBy the looks of the pics above, it eliminates the entire blower fan area.  So yes.  However, do note that the water inlet/outlets are located in the very front in place of that blower.  With 90° bends, you’ll still be much shorter than the original HS&Fan shroud.\n\n \n\n \nI know I was one who signed/confirmed I’d buy two immediately when they are available before they worked on it.\n\nThat was back when I was thinking I’d get 4x to 7x of these GPUs.  Boy has times (and prices) drastically changed that plan.\n\nAnd now we have specialty builds of custom inference engines that are utilizing the GPUs instruction sets to maximize performance, along with system memory.\n\nLike Radiance for the R9700, running on dual R9700s and 256GB of DDR4 can net you some serious throughput with multiple agents on Qwen 3.8 Next Flash at FP8 - that’s a 170B parameter model, leaving Qwen3.8 27B behind.\n\nThough, we can all still dream about a 7x R9700 build of $12,000 in GPUs for 224 GB of VRAM.  That be awesome.\n\n \n\n \nThank you for posting all these pics!\n\nBtw, in the US they cannot void your warranty with stickers like this.  So feel free to break that focker.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/watercooling-r9700-ai-pro", "canonical_source": "https://forum.level1techs.com/t/watercooling-r9700-ai-pro/259040#post_15", "published_at": "2026-10-23 20:24:35+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-23 20:41:02.968311+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-chips", "ai-infrastructure"], "entities": ["Alphacool", "AMD R9700 AI Pro", "Level1Techs", "Mora", "Agent9", "Gigabyte", "EK Quantum Torque", "OpenRGB"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/watercooling-r9700-ai-pro", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/watercooling-r9700-ai-pro.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/watercooling-r9700-ai-pro.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/watercooling-r9700-ai-pro.jsonld"}}