It will be available in two variants, one featuring a transparent top and the other with a nickel one, respectively

Sep 12, 2014 12:43 GMT  ·  By

EK just broke its own habit by revealing its intention to create a water cooling product for a certain graphics card without actually releasing even one picture of that particular water cooling product.

Which is to say, the company revealed its plans to make a water block but didn't attach any photos to the press release. Not of the cooler itself at any rate.

Fortunately, we can make assumptions fairly easily about what it will look like, since EK has a certain design theme, where water blocks are thin, smooth-surface things, even when they are transparent.

The EK-FC R9-285

That's what the water block will be called, as it is engineered specifically for the Radeon R9 285 graphics adapter from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD for short).

R9 285 is the latest board from the Radeon R9 200 series, though not actually the best. Still, it's just behind the R9 290X and 290, which means it's still high-end.

Thus, it can definitely do with some water cooling, especially in a computer with more than one. Dual-slot cards are all well and good, but they block PCI Express slots needlessly, so they limit how many boards can be installed at any given time.

Water cooling removes that limitation, since water blocks are almost always single-slot contraptions, and that's definitely the case here.

That said, the EK-FC R9-285 will directly cool the graphics processing unit (GPU), VRM (voltage regulation module), and RAM (random access memory) chips. It will lead to a much higher stability during overclocks.

The top cover doesn't even matter, but EK decided to offer a choice of two anyway. For those who want to see the inner workings, how water flows directly over the chips, there is one with plexiglass (the Nickel Plexi version). For everyone else, there's the Nickel Acetal version.

Availability

EK Water Blocks, the Ljubljana-based premium computer liquid cooling gear maker, will launch the full cover water block for AMD Radeon R9 285 graphics cards (based on Tonga GPU) soon, around the middle of October. Sadly, the price is unknown.

Do keep in mind that only the reference video card will be supported, not the OEM-customized ones, unless the PCB and circuits on it are exactly the same.

You will be able to connect up to four of the block together using the EK-FC Terminal, giving a single pump control of them in a CrossFireX multi-card system.

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