EVGA dramatically lowers system temperatures

EVEN THOUGH THE sales numbers in the graphics enthusiast market are very low, they count extra in a fight for prestige that helps mainstream and low-end sales.

In addition, tweaking products for enthusiasts will keep the engineering minds sharp and aware of potential problems with say the BIOS or firmware.

EVGA used CeBIT to launch a revision of known nForce 680i motherboard in a custom designed form. The guys'n'gals at EVGA teamed up with innovatek AG and will be offering a fully water-cooled motherboard for the more extreme overclocker crowd.

All-watercooled 680i motherboard with a water-cooled 8800GTX on top

The water blocks are located on the CPU, north bridge, south bridge, and most importantly the power regulation area, so enthusiasts can count on a big stability boost that should provide a far more overclocking friendly environment.

Just to illustrate the difference between air-cooling and water-cooling on the components, in a fully loaded system cooled by air only, temperature in Power Regulation area often passed the 100degC mark, while 680i Nortbridge would easily heat above 80degC. This continued in many segments, and Power Regulation area on the video card would also heat more than 100degC, so in the end your system would have several thermal spots which go past the 100degC mark.

With innovatek's water-cooling loop, temperature crashed down by massive 50-60degC on several critical areas, and now most of the components work around 10-15degC above room temperature. Seeing Power Regulation area at 35-40degC instead of 100 is milestone improvement, and same thing can be said about the graphics card.

The kit of four waterblocks will be offered either as a separate upgrade, or fully mounted (besides the top part of the CPU block, which has to be installed after you put the CPU inside the Socket.

Watercooled 8800GTX compared to one with the ACS3. Weight is nearly the same thanks to a ton of copper on the water-cooled GTX, but H2O 8800GTX can be modified into a single slot

EVGA will also revamp the GeForce 8800 product line with ACS3 cooling spanning across the whole range of 8800GTS and GTX cards. µ