14 DAY TRIAL // Once again, Ljubljana-based premium water cooling gear manufacturer EK Water Blocks has released a water cooling product for a graphics card. Specifically, it has revealed a water block for owners of the ASUS Radeon R9 290X Direct CU II graphics card.
Since EK already has water blocks for more or less every reference high-end graphics card from Advanced Micro Devices (and NVIDIA for that matter), it only has OEM cards to work with until a new wave of them comes out.
That is why, in this instance, the company has made a cooler for the overclocked and custom-cooled DirectCU II series.
It's a bit ironic really, that EK would be making a water block for a video board that already has its own non-reference cooling module.
Then again, water cooling is always better than air cooling, and more silent too. Also, if users want to overclock their boards, then liquid cooling is the way to go.
So here it is, the EK-FC R9-290X DCII, with three distinct versions, although the shape of the base and top do not differ from one to another.
Only the material does, or materials, since the base and top aren't made of the same thing, not necessarily.
The base of the EK-FC R9-290X DCII is made of nickel-plated electrolytic copper, while the top is produced either from POM Acetal or quality cast acrylic material.
Either way, the water block uses 0.6 mm wide microchannel structure and screw-in brass standoffs (pre-installed, for safe and easy installation).
Water flows directly over the graphics processing unit (GPU), VRAM chips (video random access memory) and the VRM (voltage regulation module). That's why stability should be good even at high overclocking settings.
Finally, it should be possible to connect up to four EK-FC R9-290X DCII water blocks in the same water cooling system, via EK-FC Terminal, EK-HD Tube & Adapter System or EK-FC Bridge CSQ.
The EK-FC R9-290X DCII has a price of €102.95 / $102.95 (Nickel version), €104.95 / $104.95 (Acetal+Nickel and Nickel Original CSQ). A backplate can be acquired for an extra €26.38 / $26.38.
The AMD Radeon R9 290X video card is the best single-GPU board from Advanced Micro Devices, and the ASUS Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II is a stronger version of it. Performance can go a lot higher than the factory setting, however, in the hands of brave overclockers. EK's water block is meant to allow them to test their skills without immediately causing GPU and PCB meltdown.
