Asetek unveils GeForce 9800 water cooling system

Posted at: 6:10am 3rd April 2008 by Ben Hardwidge

New ‘hybrid’ cooler fits GeForce 9800 GTX and GX2 cards

Nvidia’s new GeForce 9800 GTX might have met with the equivalent of a ‘slow clap’ among gamers, but Asetek reckons there’s plenty of mileage to be had form water-cooling the GPU. The company has just announced a new water-cooling system for both the 9800 GTX and the GX2, which it says ‘exceed the stringent thermal performance, low noise and daunting reliability requirements demanded by OEMs.’

The new cooler relies on both liquid and air cooling to cool the cards, which Asetek refers to as ‘hybrid’ cooling in a bid to get on the latest buzzword bandwagon. Like Vadim, Asetek is working on the theory that the GPU is the part of a graphics card that’s in most need of water-cooling, with a water-cooled cold plate attached to the GPU, while the memory and VRMs are cooled by ‘forced air convection.’ The company reckons that its cooler can reduce the GPU temperature by a massive 25C when compared with a standard air cooler.

Asetek also claims that the cooler makes a minimal amount of noise, and claims that the cooler never makes exceeds 22dBA, compared with the 50dBA that it says is produced by standard air coolers. Asetek also says that the cooler exhausts most of the heat from the card to the outside of the chassis, meaning that your system fans will have to do less work to keep the system cool.

Asetek’s senior vice president of marketing, Gary Baum, said that ‘low noise is the new requirement for consumer PCs and workstations, and liquid cooling can achieve both optimal thermal performance and the desired low system noise.’