Sapphire announces watercooled XTX

[CaiNaM]

Images

SAPPHIRE BLIZZARD COOLER PUSHES X1900XTX LIMITS
Mar 10th, 2006-Now adding silent cooling to the highest levels of graphics performance ever achieved in the PC industry, Sapphire Technology has just introduced a new Blizzard liquid cooled model in its Radeon X1900 series full press release

 

[nib95]

That is just totally cool.
I'm so tempted to buy one, but I asume its going to cost a fortune, and even then with a very high OC still perform slightly worse then my SLI 7900 GT OC set up.

 

[n7]

Very tidy solution.

Melikes.

 

[imported_Cript]

I thought they were bringing back that liquid metal thing, it looked pretty cool. This is a one slot version of the thermaltake tide water cooler with a sapphire sticker.

 

[CaiNaM]

yea, was gonna say, it looks like a modified tidewater

 

[Janet Reno]

The liquid metal cooling system on the Blizzard X850XT card would have been sweet but they pretty much scrapped it all togeather. I believe it didn't even take up an extra slot(correct me if wrong) and cooled incredibly well and was silent. I'm not even sure the card hit retail, though it's a listed product on their site.

 

[moonboy403]

it looks kinda like thermaltake's tidewater to me

 

[Praxis1452]

it is but instead it's only one slot. Personally either do a real water cooling solution with 1/2" tubes and a nice radiator or get good air cooling. This seems kinda bad or is it just me?

 

[Painman]

Definitely Tt. Look at the blown up images, you can see "Thermaltake" printed on the hoses.

I'll stick with the WC loop I just put in

 

[Powermoloch]

ooooh

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: Praxis1452
it is but instead it's only one slot. Personally either do a real water cooling solution with 1/2" tubes and a nice radiator or get good air cooling. This seems kinda bad or is it just me?

This does seem bad. Over the years, the liquid inside will become contaminated with various forums of algae. The total amount of liquid in there will drop over time. The level of effectiveness of cooling the video card will also be reduced as time goes by.

Unless of course the liquid is replacable. That would fix all problems.

 

[Nirach]

To be honest, I think it's utterly crap.

Why watercool just the GPU? It'd make more sense to do something like Koolance did with the X800 series full card cooler and cool everything.

Passive air cooled RAM/mosfets combined with W/C? I doubt it'll be worth the inevitably larger price tag. The actualy cooling unit can't really be taken too far from the card, otherwise those 3/8th inch tubes will probably colapse. Okay, Koolance use 3/8th too, but at least theirs does the whole card as oppose to just the GPU.

Sorry, Sapphire, but this product is pointless, and will (Without a doubt) be far too expensive for what it is.

 

[Ackmed]

Thats one way to look at it. Another way is, that it will be MUCH more quiet. 18/26dBA at 2000/2500RPM, is a lot quieter. Depending on performance, it may very well be worth it. In the end, the option of having it, is better than not at all.

I could equally say that your Apple 20" to "be far too expensive for what it is". See how that works?

 

[Praxis1452]

But a real water cooling loop could cool better and be just as quiet

 

[Nirach]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Thats one way to look at it. Another way is, that it will be MUCH more quiet. 18/26dBA at 2000/2500RPM, is a lot quieter. Depending on performance, it may very well be worth it. In the end, the option of having it, is better than not at all.

I could equally say that your Apple 20" to "be far too expensive for what it is". See how that works?

Entirely true.

The monitor probably is, when the Dell is cheaper and has more features. I went with the Apple 'cause I got a discount, and I prefered the looks, by the way. </offtopic>

I'm just a little confused as to why someone would bother watercooling a graphics card and not do it as a whole card solution. It doesn't make sense, to me, to have part air part water.

 

[jim1976]

It's a good alternative for those that don't want to go to a more advanced and complete W/C solution.. Especially with the noise and heat levels the X19k generates..

 

[Praxis1452]

I wouldn't trust that cooler -_- seems a bit to small for me even if it's water cooling. I'd rather have something like the accelero X2 even if it isn't DHES. Though of course I really don't like the accelero's because of it.

 

[nitromullet]

Yeah, interesting as a design challenge/exercise I'm sure, but 3 slots... No thanks, I have more in my PC than just a video card. It is deep as well, so it is possoble that it will cover up other stuff too. Mobo makers make sure that the graphics cards will fit, but they don't anticipate an extra long card in a regular PCI slot.

 

[Praxis1452]

it's 2 slots since you minues the 1 slot from the stock cooling and the water cooling takes up 1 slot. The regular takes up 3 =O