Introduction

Phanteks had recently re-entered our custom water cooling product review database with the new Glacier C370I CPU block. I noted how Phanteks had decided to have specific Intel and AMD platform blocks which then come in two different colors/finishes. Phanteks was one of the earliest mainstream brands to get into DIY cooling and has maintained its design language through the years, only tweaking slightly for CPU/GPU compatibility but otherwise not changing too much when it comes to the cooling engine and plumbing layout. However, when it comes to non-reference PCBs, things are usually different. You may have already seen the first three water block reviews for the ASUS RTX 4090 Strix/TUF GPUs from the likes of Watercool, Alphacool, and CORSAIR before, and today is Phantek's turn to show what it has to offer.


As with the Glacier C370I CPU block, this Phanteks G4090 GPU block for the RTX 4090 Strix/TUF—also referred to as the Glacier G4090AS—comes in black or white color options. But there is also a third chrome version in case you decide to add that extra bling to your PC build. The three colors/finishes are otherwise functionally identical and they should all perform the same too. We see right away that Phanteks has decided to forgo a separate I/O ports terminal in favor of integrating them into the top itself. The cooling engine is also angled and different from the norm, so that merits a closer look too. Of course there is RGB lighting as expected and Phanteks also says to look out for an included backplate with every block to help sweeten the deal. Let's thank the company for sending a review sample to TechPowerUp and begin our coverage with a look at the product specifications in the table below.

Specifications