14 DAY TRIAL // Liquid cooling has been making the news quite a bit recently, and this once the occasion is market by such technology landing on a graphics card from PNY instead of a central processing unit.
IT companies came up with the idea of using liquid, whether water or something else, to keep hardware temperatures at manageable levels years ago.
In fact, there is a certain performance level, especially during overclocking, beyond which CPUs, memory or graphics cards survive only if liquid is involved.
To illustrate the penchant of enthusiasts for liquid cooling, Intel was recently implied to have decided on shipping its upcoming Sandy Bridge-E CPUs without any coolers to speak of, leaving it to customers to find an air or liquid-based one themselves.
Now, PNY has issued a press announcement in which it describes not a new CPU, but a video card that got such treatment.
The board in question is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 and the waterblocks one may find it with are made by Asetek.
The XLR8 liquid Cooler GTX 580 has an integrated coldplate, pump and a 120mm radiator, while the XLR8 Liquid Coolerd GTX 580 with CPU Cooling (quite the self-explanatory name) has an extra waterblock for the CPU.
“Designed to increase performance while reducing noise and temperature, PNY’s Liquid Cooled Graphics offers the fastest factory-overclocked card currently on the market at 857 MHz,” said Nicholas Mauro, senior marketing manager, PC components for PNY.
“The simple all-in-one design offers a powerful, yet easy to install and cost-effective gaming solution that’s backed by the PNY warranty. This highly anticipated graphics option will enable more enthusiast gamers to experience gaming in a whole new way.”
The 'simple' model has a price of $579.99, while the one with CPU cooling sells for $649.99. A limited edition bundle can be received free of charge as well (HDMI Mini to HDMI Cable, a flash drive, T-Shirt).
