Self Contained Water Cooled Radeon X1900, Retail

Spinnerbait writes "Graphics cards are all the rage in the Enthusiast Computing community, where overclocking standard off-the-shelf components is commonplace. Recently innovative cooling solutions have been brought to Graphics cards in an effort to tame the thermals of their power hungry GPUs. It looks like some of the major vendors have taken it up a notch in this area, with this ATI-based Sapphire Graphics card that employs a self-contained water cooling system. Not only does the card have potential for serious overclocking but it should do so relatively quietly as well."

Comments

More Power!

[cosmotron]

I wonder how much power this uses if you have your own water cooling for everything else, then a seperate system just for your video card?

I'll Pass...

[evilviper]

I really don't want graphics cards with better cooling systems. I want them to RUN COOLER in the first place. Water-cooling a device just allows you to push the problem back a little further, before it really starts causing problems. Pretty soon you'll have to upgrade your power supply and home airconditioner to use a shinny new GPU.

External PCI-X connector

[Twillerror]

I think it is about time to start thinking about the GPU as a device, like a cd-rom or harrdrive instead of a card.

They already require an external power supply in some cases, and with SLI are using a special type of connector.

I'd like to see a GPU that comes in the form of a 5.25 bay expansion, with a pci-x card that connects it via a cable to the mobo.

Then I think the industry could come up with a standard cable for all cards. Or not, given that nvidia or whoever could come up with just about anything. I could see a card that interfaces through the memory slots ( if your motherboard had enough realastate). A GPU directly connected to Hypertransport anyone?

Water?

[nurb432]

It could be someting other then water, like antifreeze.. Woudl be able to use a peltier block and run it even colder then you can with water.

Or even sodium. So what if it breaks and the user dies ;)

Why water?

[bogaboga]

I have always wondered:

Does it have to be water to cool these GPUs? Is it water because of its relative hight Specific Heat Capacity, or because it's cheap and readily available?

I can see slashdotters increasing the capacity of the "tank" that stores water on these GPUs to make sure the GPU stays cool.

Re:Why water?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because water is cheap and readily available. It's also non-toxic, an important consideration for overclocking types who accidentally trip over the hoses they use to run their machine 0.2% faster than stock. As for increasing the water capacity of the system, unless you're planning on increasing it to infinity it won't make any difference - at some point the water will start coming back hot unless you've got a method of cooling it in the loop. Hint: water cooling isn't magic, it's just heat transfer over long distances.

Self contained and silent?

[the real darkskye]

Is it actually self-contained if you have to refill it?
Is it actually silent if it still has a fan?

I think what TF[A|S] actually ment was 'pre-fitted water-cooled ATI'

Seems an odd design?

[SmallFurryCreature]

I always thought the problem with cooling a PC was in getting the heat OUT of the PC case. Air can be a good cooler but the problem is that it is so hard to direct the cold air in and the hot air out. Escpecially in a PC case wich is usually cramped and filled with great big walls wich block the airflow.

CUE watercooling wich takes the heat via the water outside of the case where you can have a slow unobstructed fan get rid of the heat.

Almost every design I seen always gets the hot water out of the case to be cooled down by large unobstructed fans.

Yet this setup seems to pump the water from the hot graphics card to a spare PCI slot in your PC where the fan will be blowing the heat away right inside your computer.

If you unlucky right back onto your gpu.

To be efficient the cooler would have to be outside your case, with the water cables coming out of the back of the gpu and the cooler not having a PCI mounting but something that is easily attached to your case.

It is not the first time I seen this mistake, people put the nicest fans inside their case but never spend any time considering that all that does is blow the hot air around if you do not somehow setup a flow to carry it out. Oh and another to get cool air back in.

Re:A very ugly worst-case scenario...

[moro_666]

you obviously have never touched the wires of the 'safe 12v' car electricity system when you're starting the engine, go try it out, i promise it will be fun. probably not lethal, but fun enough.

  but you're right about the ovens and cars, if they are built the right way, it won't really be dangerous to you, but then again, you don't beat the battery connections in the car or the wiring of the oven when you miss a frag do you ?

  the electric cow fences run at a moderatly low voltage, but the current strenth in it so large that if you touch it with bare hand, you'll remember it for the rest of your life (i remember it pretty well :s). if currents inside the computer continue the rise, we have to find methods to make the connections safer.

  i on the other hand am looking around for machines with mobile cpu's or even built ontop of the via or transmeta cpu's, because the eletricity bills are starting to get really large if you have a lot of boxes running and an alternative must be found. sure the via cpu can't do what amd or intel does, but 3 boxes of via will do better on my threaded stuff than 1 p4 box, and will consume less energy at the same time. for a quite and economical multiprocess server machine , a 4 way via or transmeta box would be much much better than a stupid p4 box which takes more energy and does less.

  ofcourse gamers will continue on the gigahertz race unless somebody totally redefines the 3d engines in the way that it can be run on many many economical cpu's instead of one that blows your fuses.