Installation and Lighting

Installing the Watercool Heatkiller V Pro GPU block for your specific GPU begins with removal of the stock cooler. In this case, Watercool made it simple by shipping the PCB only and it's quite something else to behold in person. For those curious, we have a full review of the ASUS RTX 4090 Strix here. The next step is to remove the back plate from the block/backplate ensemble to allow for the cold plate to access the PCB. Apply thermal paste and make sure you have the correct thermal pads on the front before placing the block carefully on top of the PCB while aligning the holes around the GPU core with the four standoffs on the cold plate. Then carefully flip the whole thing over and use a box to avoid the GPU I/O cover from interrupting an otherwise flush contact. Now simply screw the block and PCB together using the four screws and washers—be sure to have the black, non-electrically conductive surface of the washers contacting the PCB—as seen above. Then you repeat the process with the back plate, including the thermal pads, and screw it in place using the same screws from earlier. Note that the wrap-around cover can still be removed after the GPU block is installed; this provides access to the BIOS switch should you wish to change it without having to remove the entire block which would be a pain.


The finished product is quite heavy so do be careful and don't drop it! It also looks super clean with the sandwich-style design that has the backplate slot in well. I also appreciated the cutout for the cable connector as previously mentioned. If you are going to use colored coolant, the clear top will allow you to see it nicely. For those wanting to use the integrated RGB lighting, you have to plug in the provided cable with the smaller connector going to the port on the side near the I/O ports and the larger one headed to a standard 3-pin, 5 V ARGB header on your motherboard or other such compatible LED controller.


There are 12 ARGB LEDs in the Heatkiller V Pro block for the ASUS RTX 4090 Strix/TUF and this works out quite well despite all of them being in a single row at the bottom. The side cover also helps hide the discrete lighting locations and we end up with a fairly uniform, diffused lighting visible through the clear top as well as the accent lines cut into the side covers on the front and top alike. Seen above are some photos and videos showing you how the block would look lit up—please be aware I turned down the exposure since my camera isn't the best for videos, the block is more vibrant in real life.