Posted on Tuesday, September 04 2018 @ 15:08 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
EK Waterblocks teases its new EK-Vector RTX series waterblocks for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX series video cards. The firm offers models for the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti, with prices starting at 129.90EUR for the copper + plexi or copper + acetal versions. For 15-20EUR extra, the company also offers nickel + acetal or nickel + plexi versions with RGB. Backplates are also offered in black and nickel editions, for 36.90EUR and 43.90EUR, respectively. The EK-Vector RTX waterblocks are available for pre-order and will ship on September 20, but the nickel backplates won't start shipping until October 5.
EK® Water Blocks, the Slovenia based water cooling gear manufacturer, is introducing its new generation of high-performance water blocks for the newly announced NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX series graphics cards, based on Turing TU104 and Turing TU102 graphics processor.
EK-Vector RTX
The inspiration for the new GPU block name “Vector” came from the sheer computing power of the graphics cards that are on the market today. Naming a water block “Full Cover” isn’t enough these days, when the product is packed with unique features, such as these.
The EK® Vector RTX water block is specially designed for multiple NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX Turing based reference design graphics cards. The water block itself uses the signature EK® single slot slim look, and it covers the entire PCB length. This sophisticated cooling solution will transform your beefy graphics card into a minimalistic, elegant piece of a hardware. The block also features a unique aesthetic cover over the block Terminal which is designed to reveal the graphics card model, visible from the side.
The water block comes in eight different variations and each of them directly cools the GPU, VRAM and the VRM (voltage regulation module) as cooling liquid is channeled directly over these critical areas. This allows the graphics card to remain stable at high overclocks, intensive workloads and also enables it to run at its maximum Boost Clock. Ultimately, you can enjoy gaming at the highest possible performance of your graphics card, stutter-free in a low noise environment.
The eight variations include combinations of materials like bare electrolytic copper, nickel plated electrolytic copper, black POM Acetal, Acrylics with some of them having added standard 12V LED strips. Performance-wise all variants of the block are the same, the only difference being the overall aesthetics of them.
The newly developed water blocks feature a redesigned cooling engine that has a larger footprint compared to the previous generation of full cover water blocks. This results in a larger surface area for heat transfer which allows the increase of thermal performance of these water blocks.
The EK® Vector Series water blocks use an Open Split-Flow cooling engine design which proved to be a superior solution for GPU water blocks. It is characterized by low hydraulic flow restrictions, meaning it can be used with weaker water pumps, or pumps running on low-speed settings and still achieve top performance. The jet plate and fin structure geometry have been optimized to provide even flow distribution with minimal losses and optimal performances even when used in reversed water flow scenarios.
With the help of countless flow simulations, the coolant path has been revised over several iterations to ensure each surface and feature is optimally placed. Consequently, we were able to achieve excellent flow distribution with a design that embodies high thermal performance and the precise simplicity of the latest generation of full cover EK® GPU water blocks.
Compatibility
All EK® Vector RTX 2080 water blocks are compatible with reference design NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2080 graphics cards based on Turing TU104 graphics processors. This includes graphics cards from vendors that have a custom cooler over a reference design PCB.
All EK® Vector RTX 2080 Ti water blocks are compatible with reference design NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards based on Turing TU102 graphics processors. This includes graphics cards from vendors that have a custom cooler over a reference design PCB.
As always, we recommend that you refer to the EK® Cooling Configurator for a precise compatibility match! EK® is updating the compatibility list with newly released hardware from various manufacturers to the EK Cooling Configurator database so that compatible graphics cards are being added to the list on daily basis:
The new EK Vector series water blocks are not compatible with factory backplates, but only the EK Vector backplates that passively cool the graphics chip and VRM from the back side of the PCB.
RGB Compatibility
One of the key features of the EK® Vector RTX 2080 RGB water blocks is their simplicity as they use a standard 4-pin 12V RGB LED strip. Meaning, they can be used with any standard 4-pin 12V RGB controller with or any of the popular RGB sync technologies from major motherboard manufacturers.
