Fermi @ 1ghz – EVGA deliver the goods

While busy swimming through a sea of rumours, Miodrag Relic, EVGA’s head of European marketing, was able to find time to show off his companies latest foray into the challenge of keeping Fermi cool enough to rock the DX11 world. Not an easy trick, so how do they plan to manage it?

For many years, while the likes of CoolIT, Zalman and Corsair have been trying to make liquid cooling as simple as letting a bottle of ice cold cola slide down your throat, there has been an entire sub-culture of hardcore KitGurus out there who have been praying at the altar of the one true god, Swift Tech.

The CoolIT Omni system provides an intriguing glimpse into a possible future where mass-market liquid cooling for high end cards becomes a reality (given that it has the flexibility needed to eliminate serious logistics issues for the manufacturer>disti>reseller>customer supply chain).

In the meantime, nothing can really match the benefits of a purpose designed system and that’s exactly what EVGA has brought to the table with its new water-cooled GTX parts.

Solid lumps of metal with beautifully machined connectors let you know immediately that you are about to enter a world of quality not often found in the Far East.

So, let’s ask the all important question…  just how fast are these liquid cooled cards?

The regular GTX480 has a standard shipping clock of 700MHz.

With the new SwiftTech block – that’s raised to 750MHz.

Er.

Whoop?

Don’t worry, we wouldn’t have made you read several paragraphs for a 50MHz hike, we’re not that cruel [Speak for yourself – Ed].

In the EVGA labs, they have already clocked these cards to a whopping 1GHz.

That’s right, 1GHz of full force Fermi.

Nice.

What that does to your benchmark scores and/or warranty is another thing entirely.

We’ll get one into the independently KitGuru Lab as soon as possible – then all your questions about the effectiveness of Miodrag's liquid-loving holes will be revealed.

KitGuru says: From slurpies to swimming pools, we're big fans of the liquid. Question is: Just how good is nVidia's production process? If you're lucky enough to get a card that will clock stably to >900Mhz, then that's one thing. However, if you get <800MHz, then it looks like a waste of resource. What happens if it ends up between 800 and 900MHz? We'll need to wait for Zardon's view.

Discuss in our forums over here or just leave a quick comment below

Become a Patron!