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EVGA has a naked, watercooled GeForce 9800 GX2
Author: Richard SwinburnePublished: 6th March 2008
One clothed, one without...
The EVGA/Innovatek block is CNC milled aluminium and will be offered as an alternative (with price premium) to the standard GeForce 9800 GX2. It’ll be a part of a new, entirely watercooled, Black Pearl motherboard based on the reference Nvidia nForce 790i Ultra SLI design. Since the chipset is ultra enthusiast, EVGA hopes it’ll help those overclockers with the very deep pockets necessary to buy the 790i in the first place, achieve even higher overclocks and performance.
Inside, the two PCBs are hooked to either side of the block and there’s now a huge gap where the fan would have been. Another thing we noticed is that the power connectors now light up too, and an 8-pin and 6-pin are required – we were told two 6-pins is a no-no.
Considering the cost of a pair of GeForce 9800 GX2s and an nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard anyway, and it’s potential heat output – for once we can see this might actually be a viable alternative: if you’re spending that much anyway why not go the whole hog. We didn’t find out if the watercooling kit was ESA compatible, although we expect so given the entire integration being pushed here and EVGA’s close relationship to both Nvidia and Innovatek.
The "finished result" lends us to mixed feelings - the block looks awesome and should cool far better than the reference design, however it now makes the card look exceptionally ugly. It will have a PCI plate, but it won't come with any other covering.
Another cool innovation from EVGA was its “UV Plus” – a CNC milled aluminium block with a mini USB jack on one side and DVI in the other – that’s it. EVGA showed off a notebook running four displays, three of which were from the UV Plus boxes. While the 100 units made were all handmade by EVGA HQ so the final retail samples will likely change, the company was very keen to show that it’s not all about rebranding Nvidia products.
To be honest, we have to think this is a little winner – it’s incredibly simple, compact and it looks absolutely fantastic, even in its very raw, unpolished state. While many notebooks already come with an external display connector already, for ultra portables or as a backup this could be perfect. Tell us what you think in the forums.
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Comments (15)
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for the price Innovatek charges for their coolers (the 9800GX2 one is like 180 euro in their online shop) and even more so with the hefty premium evga slaps on their watercooled produts I would except nothing less massive copper.
Of course I'll never be able to afford it, but here's hoping for a big bit-tech competition :)
Also surely EVGA could make a nice black cover for the watercooled 9800GX2, like the standard covers but just modding the top a little for the block to poke out, would make it a lot less ugly.
FYI, no link to forums on the article, only comments :(
I mean, they could have jiggled the end of the card around, made it shorter (and look better) and actually do some work for their money
Plus it would be a great excuse to buy one - "but honey, the one without watercooling wont fit my case"
Therefore the block needs to be big enough to fill the gap between the 2 cards