| 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 100C mark in an air-cooled system,
and the north bridge can heat up to over 80C. The same goes for the GeForce
8800 GTX's power regulation area, which also goes up above 100C on the
air-cooled model. With water cooling, the highest temperatures are around
50-60C, and "most of the components" are said to work 10-15C above room
temperature. The Innovatek/eVGA water block kit will be offered either
pre-mounted or as a separate upgrade.