AMD Unveils the Liquid-Cooled, Dual-GPU Radeon R9 295X2 At $1,500
wesbascas (2475022) writes "This morning, AMD unveiled its latest flagship graphics board: the $1,500, liquid-cooled, dual-GPU Radeon R9 295X2. With a pair of Hawaii GPUs that power the company's top-end single-GPU Radeon R9 290X, the new board is sure to make waves at price points that Nvidia currently dominates. In gaming benchmarks, the R9 295X2 performs pretty much in line with a pair of R9 290X cards in CrossFire. However, the R9 295X2 uses specially-binned GPUs which enable the card to run with less power than a duo of the single-GPU cards. Plus, thanks to the closed-loop liquid cooler, the R9 295X doesn't succumb to the nasty throttling issues present on the R9 290X, nor its noisy solution."
It's not so much the thermal conductivity of the GPU->water vs. GPU->copper heatsink that's the direct benefit. It's using the water to carry the heat to a much larger radiator rather than having to have the heatsink directly on the GPU (which greatly limits its size).
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
I design cooling systems for high-heat semiconductors.
So we can expect you to be pretty knowledgeable about stuff, not overlooking important details, and understanding the various limitations imposed by each method...
Guess what? Liquid cooling SUCKS as you're still limited by how fast you can transfer the heat to the air ultimately.
"His name was James Damore."