14 DAY TRIAL // EVGA may have wished it were the only company to launch a water-cooling solution for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470, but it appears that this is simply not the case. In fact, Inno3D has also been working on a waterblock for the GTX 470, and it seems that it has finally been completed. The i-Chill Black Series GTX 470, previewed during CeBIT 2010, has finally been officially announced, though not all details have been revealed.
Normally, a custom-cooled video board comes with modified clocks and perhaps certain overclocking-friendly extra features. Inno3D, however, decided not to meddle with the base specifications too much, in order to accomplish what it had intended: lower operational temperatures and, thus, a higher stability. To this end, the special waterblock was created.
The water cooling solution on the i-Chill GeForce GTX 470 Black Series is both long and wide, in order to successfully come into contact with not only the graphics processing unit (GPU), but also the I/O chip, the GDDR5 chips and the voltage regulators. It implements the Direct-Flow design on Inlet/Outlet and is composed of a stainless steel plate, a copper base and 1/4-inch barbs. Basically, this waterblock will drive the temperature of the card down by 40 degrees. This means that, at full load, the adapter won't exceed 52 degrees Celsius.
For user convenience, high thermal conductivity grease pads are pre-applied in the memory and MOSFET. Inno3D didn't exactly say when the new model would start selling, nor at what price. Such details may be disclosed at Computex, in June, however, which means that hopefuls may not have to wait overly long. There is no question, of course, about the i-Chill being more expensive than the reference device, which means that consumers may have to start saving money in advance.