DailyTech - Sapphire Releases Water Cooled X1900 XTX

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Hardware Sapphire Releases Water Cooled X1900 XTX
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - March 19, 2006 5:59 AM

31 comment(s) - last by Dfere.. on Mar 22 at 12:22 PM

Integrated water-block

Fan on cooling unit can be turned on or off

Taking up an incredible 3 expansion slots for one board

Sapphire produces a 3-slot Radeon X1900 XTX water-cooled from factory

Sapphire has given word to us that its unique Blizzard Radeon X1900 XTX video card is now shipping. The card stands out from other X1900 XTX cards by including a factory integrated water-cooling device, which mounts a copper water block on the GPU for maximum heat dissipation. Those interested in Sapphire's card will have to take caution however, as the card consumes considerable space. With standard Radeon X1900 XTX boards already taking up two expansion bays, Sapphire's monster card takes up an additional bay for a total of three slots.

Quick Specifications:

Blizzard Cooling System
Copper water block and radiator
512MB GDDR3 memory
650MHz Core
1550MHz Memory
PCIe 16x native
Dual DVI outputs
Video In/Video Out connectors

Interestingly, the water cooling unit also comes equipped with an electronic fan which helps move air over the radiators for increased performance. The fan can be turned on or off depending on how far a customer chooses to overclock the board. The card's onboard memory chips are cooled by conventional heatsinks, which while adequate, don't really provide balanced cooling performance. Overclocking the card's memory would be improved had there been a heat pipe connecting all the memory heatsinks to the water-block.

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crossfire?

By NerV04 on 3/19/2006 8:25:39 AM , Rating: 2

damn if it takes up 3 slots...is there even room for a crossfire setup?

RE: crossfire?

By DarthPierce on 3/19/2006 9:04:50 AM , Rating: 2

Well, I think you still could, since each board is really only 2 consecutive slots and then a 3rth that's moveable.... so you could put both the water coolers down lower (covering the rest of your PCI slots probably)

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RE: crossfire?

By HDBanger on 3/19/2006 10:07:34 AM , Rating: 2

This thing is a pos , no ram cooling is just retarded, why even bother when this is available?
http://www.koolance.com/shop/produ ct_info.php?prod...

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RE: crossfire?

By HDBanger on 3/19/2006 10:09:53 AM , Rating: 2

Man this place neeeeeed edit feature, the above link wont work for some reason.. this is the part on the koolance site I was referring to.
VID-200-L06 (Vid)

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RE: crossfire?

By saratoga on 3/19/2006 5:53:37 PM , Rating: 2

RAM puts out little heat, and the size of the (many) BGA packages is quite large, so thermal density is ~2+ orders of magnitude lower then logic. For this reason, watercooling isn't justified from a performance standpoint. Thats also why most attempts to sell RAM blocks have met with skeptism from the WCing community.

The downside is that you will need SOME ventilation. I'm not sure how much airflow you'll really get from that thing. They should have flipped the fan on the rad unit over so that it could draw air over the RAM blocks.

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RE: other options

By miahallen on 3/19/2006 11:33:03 AM , Rating: 2

Or, if you have an SLI setup, this is really nice:

http://www.frozencpu.com/ex-blc-23 6.html

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RE: other options

By mxzrider2 on 3/20/2006 11:26:48 PM , Rating: 2

those are sweet really sweet i might have to get that when (well if) i got to water cooling.

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RE: crossfire?

By The Battōsai on 3/19/2006 2:16:00 PM , Rating: 2

well that sucks. the link doesn't work lol :). wonder what it was :D. i wisht that company that was supposed to make the liquid metal cooling stuff still was :(

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RE: crossfire?

By ShadowD on 3/20/2006 12:17:19 AM , Rating: 2

Because koolance makes terrible watercooling components, unless you enjoy paying twice as much for something made out of aluminium coated with a thing layer of something like 7k gold. (a nice time to point out that gold has poorer thermal conductivity that copper).

I'd go for this enclosed system over some koolance POS, I don't want to have to put anti-freeze in my W/C system just so that the koolance parts don't corrode everything else. (aluminium and copper in the same W/C loop corrode each other like crazy).

DangerDen parts are impossibly better, not just in performance but in quality. I've never heard of anyone needing to lap their DD parts..

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RE: crossfire?

By Wwhat on 3/19/2006 10:17:07 AM , Rating: 2

It doesn't actually use any electrical connection of the slot it sits in aparantly, so in theory you could just put it anywhere in the case as long as you find a way to make an airventilationhole for it if you are really strapped for space in the slotsarea.

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RE: crossfire?

By supremelaw on 3/19/2006 3:12:49 PM , Rating: 2

Good point.

I could see it being mounted at a right angle
to the video card, to receive cold air via
side panel vents. This setup would then
call for a different bracket, and a matching
case with a place to mount 2 of these radiators.

The Antec P180 had a similar approach, using
a duct with fan positioned right above the
video cards. Sapphire should work with a
few case manufacturers to design and sell
a slick compatible case, and a modular rear
panel with removable bracket to accommodate
2 of these radiators. Now, the GPU heat
is totally isolated from all other components:
cold air enters at the side panel, and removes
the GPU heat straight out the rear panel, hardly
adding any heat to the case interior.

I like it. Can I have a patent for this idea? :)

Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library
http://www.supremelaw.org/

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RE: crossfire?

By supremelaw on 3/19/2006 3:18:07 PM , Rating: 2

... and re-design the radiator to
accommodate 2 video cards, using
4 hose fittings instead of only 2.

Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library
http://www.supremelaw.org/

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RE: crossfire?

By Griswold on 3/19/2006 3:40:03 PM , Rating: 2

Sapphires "Tide Water Plus" is for crossfire setups. Blocks 6 slots with both cards and the radiator unit.

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RE: crossfire?

By mxzrider2 on 3/20/2006 11:29:35 PM , Rating: 2

ru serious. so you cant use anything but those cards even in a full tower. i have probems putting everything in a full tower case the other week with 2 vid cards and sound card.

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huh man

By The Battōsai on 3/19/2006 7:18:14 AM , Rating: 4

when are those liquid metallic coolers supposed to come out? that would be neat :)

my new cooler "zalman t-1000"
LOL :D

RE: huh man

By The Battōsai on 3/19/2006 7:19:05 AM , Rating: 2

heat: tuhmanated LOL

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RE: huh man

By kalaap on 3/19/2006 12:59:10 PM , Rating: 2

they're not coming out at all...the company that invented that cancelled all contracts w/ vendors for the use.

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RE: huh man

By Sagarian on 3/21/2006 3:28:46 PM , Rating: 2

this is correct. nanocoolers cancelled the product because the price for the key materials in the alloy (gallium and indium) shot up to levels that made the product unprofitable at a price people would be willing to pay.

there were a few sapphire cards produced with the liquid metal cooling though.

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Another way of separating techo-dweebs from their money ?

By kilkennycat on 3/19/2006 5:57:42 PM , Rating: 3

Product seems to fit in with those that go for the psychedelic lighting and the jazzed-up poorly-ventilated cases that seem to abound these days, even from manufacturers that should know better. So, for those of a more practical bent, what does this product have to offer?Performance matching that of the 7900GTX ? An abysmal return on this esoteric investment, since the price of the 7900GTX will slide rapidly over the coming months, as its
90nm GPU (G71) is far less expensive silicon than the 7800GTX GPU (G70, 110nm) that it replaces.

Seems as if ATi needs to crank their silicon design again since the R580 GPU is over 3x the area of the G71 and consumes ~40% more power, both parts fabricated on the TSMC 90nm process. No wonder water-cooling of the R580 is needed to achieve G71 clock speeds. ATi's current GPU architecture is extremely silicon-inefficient, and the associated silicon-cost will continue to erode their profit-margins if ATi has to supply the GPUs at prices low enough to allow their video-card partners to be competitive with nVidia-based offerings.

RE: Another way of separating techo-dweebs from their money ?

By czarchazm on 3/19/2006 11:58:45 PM , Rating: 2

Let's remember who put the water cooling on the card: Sapphire. Not ATI.

So Sapphire is going to make money from the geniuses at marketing doing their jobs.

quote:
ATi's current GPU architecture is extremely silicon-inefficient, and the associated silicon-cost will continue to erode their profit-margins if ATi has to supply the GPUs at prices low enough to allow their video-card partners to be competitive with nVidia-based offerings.

Just because a company chose a different path to a design, doesn't mean that it's wrong. Just remember that ATI is anticipating future games using intense amounts of shaders. That is what their architecture is design to target. NVidia is targeting larger screen resolutions. Remember that ATI's x1900xt has double the shader units that the G71 does. I think that should account for some of the die size difference.

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RE: Another way of separating techo-dweebs from their money ?

By kilkennycat on 3/20/2006 11:51:37 AM , Rating: 2

Correcting factual error -- ATi's R580 is actually 1.8x the area of the G71, still a significant disadvantage with regard to yield, since silicon defect rate is proportional to area. And since the wafer cost is constant regardless of chip-count, then also at least a 1.8 times raw chip-price disadvantage assuming perfect yield.

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RE: Another way of separating techo-dweebs from their money ?

By Dfere on 3/22/2006 12:22:33 PM , Rating: 2

He work on commission, or what? Who's doing the marketing now? LOL

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don't like it

By Missing Ghost on 3/19/2006 7:06:19 PM , Rating: 2

The design is not very good. They should make the radiator with the shape of a 80 or 120mm fan. Then we could put it on a fan mount and add a fan. Using a slot for a cooler is just retarded.

RE: don't like it

By supremelaw on 3/20/2006 7:41:53 PM , Rating: 2

WHAT HE SAID!!

I keep noticing that most cases have a "sandwich"
of air space between the tops of all expansion cards
and the exterior side panel.

I have been toying with the idea of creating a
wiring/cabling "chase" which would hug the side
panel once the side panel is installed: this would
help to keep the wires from obstructing air flow
to the components that need cool/fresh air.

We upgraded our Antec SX cases with the vented side
panel, which is drilled for a standard 80mm fan.

Lately, we added fan filters, to keep the dust down
inside the case: cheap @ ~ $2.00 ea. filter.

Just as you suggest, it would be far superior to
offer an integrated radiator/fan which bolts onto
a side panel, or even a rear panel, e.g. our SX
cases have 2 x 80mm fans to exhaust hot air
out the rear panel: one of those could be dedicated
to exhausting hot air from such a radiator --
SAVING A PCI SLOT!!

WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT? :)

Keep it comin!

Sincerely yours,
/s/ Paul Andrew Mitchell
Webmaster, Supreme Law Library
http://www.supremelaw.org/

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This product is a con

By lemonadesoda on 3/19/2006 9:46:11 PM , Rating: 2

What a trick. What a con. How does this system change or improve the method of cooling? It just MOVES the heat from the card, to another one slot card. The cooler card uses a fan of the same size that would be found on the GPU if it was a one-card solution. I see no benefit at all.

I think it is just a marketing stunt. People will see "water cooling" and pay a small premium AND choose the Sapphire branded product, because they think they are getting something extra.

If the cooling had been OUTSIDE the case, then that would have been interesting.

Personally, I think the GPU's are making too much heat because they are consuming too much power. Time for ATI/nVidia to drop the core voltage and improve efficiency. Too much enery is being lost/dissipated. Intel had this problem with Prescott vs. Northwood. It's partly a design problem as well as a voltage issue they need to solve.

Follow intel's lead. Reduce volts. Reduce Mhz. Stick two+ GPU's on one larger socket with more effective cooling. (internal SLI/Crossfire concept).

And to ATI... we the consumer are spending $$$. So don't worry about silicon fab size. Just add another 16 processors to your "ring". So what if the silicon costs a lot more. It's still a lot less than 2 separate GPU's in Crossfire.

RE: This product is a con

By Darth Pingu on 3/20/2006 12:37:03 AM , Rating: 2

I don’t know if ATI and NVIDIA are the only source of the problem. Perhaps the real source of the problem may be inefficient games. With games getting more and more complex and time frames to get the games out getting shorter game companies are cutting corners. Those corners are usually testing and efficiency, why bother making the code efficient when they know we are going to shell out big money for faster equipment. They can produce sloppy code and get away with it because 6 months down the road there will be a lovely 1k$ solution that will make the game run great.

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Check out http://voodoopc.blogspot.com

By BaronMatrix on 3/20/2006 3:49:48 PM , Rating: 2

RahulSood pisses all ove this new board. He says that it'll probably die in infancy because it doesn't allow for CrossFire and takes up 3 whole slots.

RE: Check out http://voodoopc.blogspot.com

By mxzrider2 on 3/20/2006 11:34:57 PM , Rating: 2

then why read his blog. he is opinionated like every one else. and i agree with him as it does take three slots.my 7800gt takes one and witha case blower under it that i got for 5 bucks runs at like 50c at full load only 4 degrees higher than at idle and this setup only takes 2 slots. full tower cases dont have enough room for a slot design let alone a crossfire six slot design like i posted above

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Price ?

By Gamer X on 3/19/2006 6:47:03 AM , Rating: 2

Price ?

What about the ram?

By Hypernova on 3/19/2006 7:02:37 AM , Rating: 2

No improved cooling for the ram is gonna really hurt its overclockability. An simple improvement would be a bent heat pipe that links all the rams that provide xtra structure for a decent wide area heat sink.