PowerColor Readies Liquid Cooled Radeon HD 6990 with EK Waterblock

Over the course of the last few years, many have argued that dual-GPU graphics cards should drop the regular air cooling employed in such solutions in favor of more advanced liquid cooling setups, so PowerColor has decided to develop the LCS Radeon HD 6990 model which pairs AMD's dual-GPU flagship card with an EK waterblock.

EK has launched the EK-FC6990 waterblock less than a month ago and this is built out of a massive piece of copper which covers the HD 6990 from end to end.

Except for the two Cayman XT GPUs, the EK-FC6990 also makes contact with the card's memory chips and VRMs and the company has even designed a backplate which should help cool the rear mounted GDDR5 memory.

The bracket of the HD 6990 has also been modified to occupy only one PCIe slot, as the additional air exhaust bracket is no longer needed.

“The PowerColor LCS HD6990 has a full water block mounted on the card, fully covering the key components which can be dissipate the heat from the copper base design.

“The offering aims to provide extraordinary thermal performance to enhance overclocking ability while allowing optimum system stability,” reads PowerColor's official statement regarding the LCS HD 6990.

The Radeon HD 6990 is AMD's fastest graphics card to date as it packs two Cayman XT cores on the same PCB and features 3072 stream processors, 192 texturing units and 64 ROPs.

Its two cores are clocked at 830MHz, but the card also features a special switch that enables users to run it into the so-called AUSUM mode that overclocks the GPUs to 880MHz.

No details regarding pricing are available at this time, but the regular version of the Radeon HD 6990 retails for $709.99 shipped, while the EK waterblock and backplate are priced at about $223 US, so the PowerColor LCS HD 6990 could go past the $900 mark. (via Legit Review)