Gigabyte Launches Aorus GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Waterforce WB Xtreme Edition 11G
There are plenty of GeForce GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards to choose from, assuming you're in the market for a top-shelf solution for high-end and/or 4K gaming. However, the field of contenders quickly begins to diminish when you weed out all of the air-cooled variants and limited your search to just liquid-cooled cards. One such card that falls into the latter category is Gigabyte's Aorus GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Waterforce WB Xtreme Edition 11G.
That is quite the mouthful, though there is plenty more here than just a long-winded name. Gigabyte's newest GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is an enthusiast solution for users either already have a liquid cooling setup inside their rigs, or plan to implement one. As such, Gigabyte's card trades a traditional (or custom) air cooling contraption for a built-in water block that can easily be incorporated into a liquid cooling loop.
Here is a sort of bird's eye view of the cooler:
The GPU is sandwiched between copper back and base plates to whisk away as much heat as possible. A finned aluminum block helps to spread the heat around as liquid flows down from an inlet and across the GPU. Before the liquid exits through the outlet, it also travels on top of the memory chips and MOSFET. Applying liquid cooling to the length of the card helps both with overclocking and maintaining peak performance under load before thermal throttling kicks in.
As you might imagine, this card comes overclocked from the factory. There are two modes with the following clockspeeds:
- Gaming Mode: 1,607MHz base / 1,721MHz boost
- OC Mode: 1,632MHz base / 1,746MHz boost
NVIDIA's reference blueprint calls for a 1,480MHz base clock and 1,582MHz boost, so you're looking at a fairly aggressive overclocking in both Gaming and OC modes.
You might also find additional headroom, in case you want to overclocking things further. Gigabyte says this card is built for "extreme overclocking," a claim it backs up by utilizing a 12+2 power phase design. And of course the requisite bling is provided by way of RGB lighting.
This card draws power from two 8-pin PCI-E connectors. It also features two HDMI 2.0b outputs, three DisplayPort 1.4 outputs, and a dual-link DVI-D output (a DVI-D to HDMI adapter is included).
Gigabyte backs this card with a 4-year warranty, provided you register it online. Beyond that, there is no word yet on price or availability.
