14 DAY TRIAL // Water cooling equipment also seems to be released in force once a new CPU or graphics card gets released, so it's not such a shock to learn of a new product launch on the part of Koolance. Especially with NVIDIA's Maxwell GPU series being so young.
Well, that's making abstraction of the GeForce GTX 750 and 750 Ti, of course. Those cards were released many months ago, for the mid-range market.
They also don't have what it takes to even demand water cooling equipment specifically made for them, so they can be ignored for the purposes of this article.
At any rate, Koolance has formally launched the VID-NX980, a full-coverage water block for NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 graphics card.
The Koolance VID-NX980
As a water block, it comes into direct contact with the graphics processing unit, the so-called GM204-400 chip running the video adapter.
However, since it's not just a normal block but a full-cover one, it also directly cools the VRM (voltage regulation module) and the memory chips.
Since there are 4 GB of GDDR5 on the board, all of them running at 7 GHz, that's a lot of chips and a lot of heat.
Fortunately, the cooler not only carries water directly over all those areas, but also uses a 0.5 mm micro-fin lattice to do it as effectively as can be expected.
As for the top of the water block, it is made of acetal material colored matter black, with chrome accents. A common G 1/4 BSPP fitting holds everything in place.
The disadvantages of the Koolance VID-NX980
Since this isn't an all-in-one liquid cooling system, the water block cannot work on its own, meaning that you'll need to get a full water cooling system if you don't have one already.
Also, the card is only compatible with versions of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 graphics cards that use the stock PCB (printed circuit board). Be sure to look closely at the PCBs and product pages of your video board, especially if it already has a custom air cooler.
Availability and pricing
The Koolance VID-NX980 full-coverage water block for NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 graphics card has a price of $129.99 / €103 and is already up for sale through the company's website.
As soon as you install it, you can start to tweak the card a bit more freely, since you won't have to worry about overheating as much. Of course, setting overclocking records of 2.2 GHz or more will need you to remove it and use liquid nitrogen instead. Not something we advise, honestly.
