EK Announces Full-Coverage Water Block for ASUS GTX 980 STRIX

[btarunr]

EK Water Blocks, Ljubljana based premium computer liquid cooling gear manufacturer, is proud to introduce a new Full-Cover water block, designed and engineered specificaly for ASUS Strix series NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 graphics cards - the EK-FC980 GTX Strix.

EK-FC980 GTX Strix is a high-performance Full-Cover water block, co-developed with ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) engineering team. The cooler actively cools the GPU, RAM as well as VRM (voltage regulation module) as water flows directly over these critical areas thus allowing the graphics card and it's VRM to remain stable under high overclocks.



EK-FC980 GTX Strix water block features EK unique central inlet split-flow cooling engine design for best possible cooling performance, which also works flawlessly with reversed water flow without adversely affecting the cooling performance. Moreover, such design offers great hydraulic perfromance allowing this product to be used in liquid cooling systems using weaker water pumps.

Base is made of nickel-plated electrolytic copper while the top is made of quality POM Acetal or acrylic (depending on the variant). Screw-in brass standoffs are pre-installed and allow for safe installation procedure.

In order to simplify the search for suitable and compatible water block EK is adding newly released graphics cards and motherboard from various manufacturers to EK Cooling Configurator database and compatible graphics cards are being added to the list on daily basis:



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[the54thvoid]

How many folk will buy a card this quiet:

This cool:

And go to the bother of putting a water block on it?

 

[The Terrible Puddle]

How many folk will buy a card this quiet:

This cool:

And go to the bother of putting a water block on it?

Insane overclock, aesthetics or both.

 

[dj-electric]

Insane overclock? maybe in a another universe where they are not softwere and hardware limited to do so.

 

[Farmer Boe]

Insane overclock, aesthetics or both.

I remember when we could achieve insane gpu overclocks....miss those days.

 

[GhostRyder]

I did not even realize the STRIX 980 was a non-reference PCB. Had not payed much attention to it and did not notice the beautiful 10Phase Digital VRM (Actually I may have just forgotten). Honestly though I agree with the comments about the card and the waterblock needs but I feel this would be good for people running multiple cards in a loop only over just adding one for the card period as the STRIX cooler is actually quite excellent (Albeit most of the cooler including the reference on the GTX 980 can overclock the card to max pretty easily). I think this is cool but honestly unless we see a card that uses a special bios and hardware to override the limitations of the card we will not see a full direct need to liquid cool these cards except for high end multi-gpu setups or if your just into liquid cooling (Like me).

 

[Jorge]

It has been almost an hour since EK issued a new Press Release. They are falling down on the job... <LOL>

 

[Eroticus]

To make it run 200mhz more and with same dbA

i'm living in hell (sand) and my Vulcan isn't running on 50*c in middle of summer .

 

[Casecutter]

I did not even realize the STRIX 980 was a non-reference PCB. Had not payed much attention to it and did not notice the beautiful 10Phase Digital VRM (Actually I may have just forgotten). Honestly though I agree with the comments about the card and the waterblock needs but I feel this would be good for people running multiple cards in a loop only over just adding one for the card period as the STRIX cooler is actually quite excellent (Albeit most of the cooler including the reference on the GTX 980 can overclock the card to max pretty easily). I think this is cool but honestly unless we see a card that uses a special bios and hardware to override the limitations of the card we will not see a full direct need to liquid cool these cards except for high end multi-gpu setups or if your just into liquid cooling (Like me).

Given the performance difference over most nice 780Ti, and yes the only way to have sense of this is SLI, then even more than just 2-way... the only upside is your electric bill. I could see if water-cooling and OC'n to insane levels a toss-up. For nearly the same money as two 980 Strix and what probably slight more pricey newer water-blocks for them, you might be able to get 3 780ti's and 3 water blocks and crazy OC's to have a system that blows the dual SLI 980's away, though electric bill be dammed! If your spending that much... You should be smart and already had a qualified electrician pull a dedicated circuit to just supply just the PSU 3x 780Ti’s OC’d requires.