 | All-watercooled 680i motherboard with a water-cooled 8800GTX on top |
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At the CeBIT show in Hannover, eVGA has been showing off a GeForce 8800 GTX
graphics card and an nForce 680i SLI motherboard both outfitted with water
blocks from Innovatek AG.
According to The Inquirer, the graphics card features a water block with a
'ton of copper covering a good part of the PCB. Although the card demoed was a
dual-slot model, it can reportedly be modified to take up only a single slot.
Also interesting is the nForce 680i SLI mobo. eVGA's regular model has a heat
pipe-based passive cooling solution covering the north bridge, south bridge, and
processor power regulation circuitry. The water-cooled version has custom-fit
water blocks on each of those components, and the pipe stubs appear to be
positioned so that a circuit can be formed from the power circuitry to the south
bridge.
The effects of water cooling can be quite dramatic: the 680i SLI's power
regulation area supposedly goes above the 100°C mark in an air-cooled system,
and the north bridge can heat up to over 80°C. The same goes for the GeForce
8800 GTX's power regulation area, which also goes up above 100°C on the
air-cooled model. With water cooling, the highest temperatures are around
50-60°C, and "most of the components" are said to work 10-15°C above room
temperature. The Innovatek/eVGA water block kit will be offered either
pre-mounted or as a separate upgrade.