Water, Air and Graphics Card

The link between water and computers appears to become tighter every day. There are cooling systems that use liquid to keep the heat away already in use. But now, Cooler Master moves one step ahead, presenting a graphics card cooler that uses both air and water to perform its task. This is a strange cooler that comes under the name Hydra 8800 and which is designed especially for nVidia's GeForce 8800 GTX and GeForce 8800 Ultra graphics card.

Although at a first glance it may look like a usual graphics card cooler, it has a water system that can be seen at a closer look. The cooler has three heat pipes and thermal pad that cools memory and MOSFET. The rated noise level of Hydra 8800 stays at 19 dBA. What makes this cooler a quiet one is the powerful blue LED fan that spins at only 1800RPM. The airflow is of 14CFM and the heat dissipation is maximized. The cooler also has a professional cover design that exhausts the hot air out of chassis.

The cooler has an expected life time of 40,000 hours and it weighs 505g. It has an aluminum block with a copper base which makes a better heat transfer. Cooler Master declared that - according to their tests - the cooler improves its effect when using both water and fan. The fan does not represent just a security measure, it is also designed to improve performance.

The tests were conducted by Cooler Master on a test bed at a temperature of 24.4 Celsius degrees, using a Leadtek graphics card. On idle system, the average temperature of the graphics card was of 50.9 centigrades while combining liquid and air cooling. On a working system (3D Mark loaded), the average temperature stayed at 64.9 centigrades in the same cooling condition. The temperature difference between Hydra 8800 and a stock cooler overcomes 15 degrees Celsius.

At this moment, Cooler Master didn't provide any information about the price or availability of Hydra 8800. Other information on Hydra 8800's features and tests conducted can be found on Cooler Master's web page, where specifications on purchase will also be available.