Water cooling gpu. Reference only?

[Pabz0r545]

Hi guys. Im about to set up my first ever water cooling loop. Also Gtx 670 has started to appear for sale today and I am going to be buying one.

Are water blocks always made for reference PCB's? Or will non ref wb's become available as well?

[Keltron 3030]

Depends on the card. I know EK is making blocks for ASUS DCII cards, as well as MSI Lightning series cards. Other non-reference cards might not be so lucky...

[Pabz0r545]

So my best bet is to stick with the reference design then huh?

[SugarJ]

Stick with the reference designs. Easier to find blocks, and better resale market for your blocks when the time comes.

[Feanor]

You MAY be able to work with universal block.

Way cheaper than a full cover block (even with the added cost of ram and vrm cooling) and you can fit them on almost any gpu, with some modding sometimes.

Downsides are it is uglier than a full cover (your opinion is as good as mine on this one), not everything is cooled (if you forget to cool the memory or vrm area properly, you'll have a pretty expensive paperweight in no time!) and multicard solution is really a mess of tubing.

My three gtx 460 are cooled using Swiftech MCW 60 gpu block. Drilling 4 holes was all the modding required for them to fit. 15$ of copper heatsink for the memory and vrm (which were not cooled by any heatsink anyways) was all that was needed. 45c while folding on the hottest core is quite good if you ask me!

[Pabz0r545]

Thanks y'all. Reference design it is! That is... if the rumors of 670 launch are true.

[Bungwirez]

helpful tool if you're into EKWB

CoolingConfigurator.com

[iLikeGreeeeen]

Originally Posted by Bungwirez

helpful tool if you're into EKWB

CoolingConfigurator.com

^ this. always use this whenever i want to find out block compatibilities

[supaflyx3]

Originally Posted by Pabz0r545

Thanks y'all. Reference design it is! That is... if the rumors of 670 launch are true.

And they indeed were!

[Pabz0r545]

I got one sitting right next to me. :D

why it isn't in my computer yet... don't ask. :P