Introduction

CORSAIR made a splashing entry into the world of custom PC watercooling with their Hydro X series, and we began our own coverage with the XC9 CPU water block last month. I mentioned then that the company had held off until a full product portfolio was complete, so customers could have an entire CORSAIR Hydro X system in place if they so desired, which means that there will be more articles on their products as well. Today, we take a look at a GPU water block, the XG7 RGB for NVIDIA 10-series cards to be more specific, and thanks again to CORSAIR for sending along a review sample.


Sure, I would have rather tested a Hydro X XG7 RTX 20-series or even Radeon Navi series block, but upgrading a GPU block test setup is easier said than done, especially when I already have a plethora tested on an overvolted, hot-as-heck GTX 1080 for comparison. It was serendipitous then that CORSAIR decided there was enough demand for yesteryear's NVIDIA "Pascal" microarchitecture and thus here we are. Unlike their CPU blocks that come in two different tiers that also support different CPU sockets, the Hydro X GPU blocks are all built to the same degree and differ only in the GPU compatibility based on the PCB design. We begin the review, as always, with a look at the specifications in the table below.

Specifications