Take the mystery out of water-cooling with ASUS’s dedicated,
liquid-cooling ready hardware
Take a look under the hood of any performance vehicle and
you’ll find the engine within cooled by water. H2O is one of the most efficient
materials at removing heat, yet our PCs still use primitive air cooling
instead. In the past air has been sufficient to cool our PCs, but with high
performance components now approaching temperatures of 100C, air is becoming
less suitable for the job.
Liquid cooling,
commonly called also water cooling,
is the best solution at rapid heat removal due to the unmatched thermal
performance
Air coolers have started using high-speed fans to push air
even faster, but these high-speed fans are very noisy, ruining the atmosphere
of a game’s soundtrack with their incessant whining. Water cooling doesn’t have
any of these problems - it’s efficient enough to easily remove much higher
levels of heat, and it’s basically silent in the process. No wonder then that
water cooling is starting to become more popular, but many PC gamers are
concerned about the difficulty of installing such a complex cooling system.
ASUS makes the process much simpler, by creating several products with water
cooling features already installed.
Poseidon Tames Your GPU
One of the hottest components in a gaming
PC is the GPU, the chip that powers the graphics card. These can easily reach
temperatures approaching boiling point, yet their cooling system has to remain
small to fit onto the graphics card. The result is one of the noisiest, hottest
components in a PC case, with a loud buzzing noise every time a demanding game
is played. This extra heat usually radiates straight to the CPU cooler, causing
it to overheat as well, lowering stability and overclocking potential.
Installing custom water cooling onto a
graphics card can be very difficult, as the owner has to manually remove the
existing cooling system. This is usually attached using a combination of screws
and special adhesive material, and it’s possible to destroy the GPU in the
process while also voiding the warranty. It’s not a cheap process, with water
cooling blocks designed for graphics cards costing well over $100.
The
tubing is made in a way that it allows you to
easily detach and move the reservoir comfortably outside of the case
ASUS makes water cooling your graphics card
much simpler, in the form of the ASUS Poseidon GTX 780. Built around NVIDIA’s
excellent GTX 780 GPU, ASUS has taken all the worries out of installing water
cooling, as the product arrives with everything you need pre-installed. Air
users can simply plug the card in and let the twin fans take care of the
cooling, ignoring the two plugs on the outside edge. The quality air cooler
does a better job than the reference NVIDIA cooler used on other models,
delivering GPU temperatures 20% lower than the reference.
However, when the water cooling feature is
used, an entirely different level of cooling can be achieved. Both plugs use
the G1/4” standard, making it easy to connect to a wide range of radiators and
pumps. Connecting the two water plugs to a standard water loops sees the GPU
temperature drop a massive 24C, while remaining totally silent in the process.
The two plugs are connected to large heat pipes which pass through a custom
vapour chamber, which explains why the temperatures are so much lower than when
using the air fans for cooling.
Hybrid-Cooled
ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 780 Graphics Card
Any overclocker knows that lower
temperatures equal better overclocking performance, and ASUS has decked out the
Poseidon GTX 780 with a range of premium overclocking features to ensure it
reaches speeds much higher than regular GTX 780s. Ten phase power control
delivers the cleanest, most stable power possible, helping to achieve
remarkable overclocking results. Premium quality chokes and MOS remove the
buzzing noise found on some graphics cards, while delivering higher voltages,
and the use of a DIGI+ Voltage Regulation Module helps stabilise the power
supply while also increasing power efficiency. ASUS delivers the Poseidon GTX
780 with a slight overclock out of the box, delivering performance at least 10%
faster than reference GTX 780 products, but it will easily hit faster speeds
thanks to the premium power components and water cooling. Offering extra
performance while making water cooling easier than ever, the Poseidon GTX 780
is a unique product that delivers cutting-edge features and power to users who
aren’t quite ready to build their own custom water cooling system.
