At times fate throws together strange circumstances, creating unusual and dangerous unions. Water and electricity are one of those unusual unions, dangerous. PNY and Asetek may not be as sexy dangerous but they have joined forces to release a special video card. Special even amongst über video cards, the XLR8 Liquid Cooled GTX 580, hell of a name for one hell of a card. What sets this card apart from the normal Nvidia 580 GTX is the sealed water cooling unit. By cleverly using a closed water cooler PNY have made the card 30% quieter and 30% cooler, making this the quietest high-end video card on the market. Of course being a closed system there is no refilling water reserves, no spilt water, no nightmares.
The video card itself is based around Nvidia’s excellent 580 GTX video card, while this is only a single GPU card it is only a matter of time, a water-cooled 590 GTX has tobe the next step. 1536MB of memory are onboard and 512 CUDA processor cores keeps everything moving along. Being a top end card the XLR8 Liquid Cooled GTX 580 will cost $579.99 USD, including CPU cooling costs $649.99. That is an $80 price premium over PNY’s air-cooled 580 GTX, worth every quiet dollar ?
In world of computers Overclockers and mod’ers are a select sub-species, skilled and dedicated like the hot rods of the 50’s these machines sang with a roar, and looked good too. Overclockers -OC- are men obsessed with numbers, and holding the highest number and position within a competing league. This is the world water-cooling was invented in, created to allow them to crank their pc past 11, well past sometimes all the way to 20. Modding is a little different to OC’ing best described as the art of spectacular computer cases, hand-made computer master pieces that are functional wonders. Water-cooling allowed the computers to be pushed further, faster, crowning a new king of overclocking. Far far too much pride in one’s computer for most people, that shouldn’t stop us taking advantage of the things learned on these overclocking and modding adventures.
As one of the most efficient conductors of heat water is easily able carry heat away to a distant point. One of the most often overlooked benefits of using water-cooling is the ability to shift the heat out of the case efficiently. As with all water cooling systems the Asetek designed system uses a radiator to transfer the heat out of the water, to the air. Being able to mount that radiator away from the video card – as far as tubes will allow 80cm – other components is a huge advantage when building or modifying a computer. With the heat from the video card being pumped out of the case directly from the radiator your computers internals and the video card will live much longer, fans won’t be running at full speed and everything should be much quieter.
“PNY’s Liquid Cooled Graphics solutions deliver better performance, temperatures and acoustics to gamers with the reliability and ease of installation inherent in Asetek sealed liquid cooling,” said Adrian Hodgson, marketing manager at Asetek. “We’re thrilled to give E3 attendees the first chance to see these products in action.”
PNY and Asetek have built an outstanding video card for any enthusiast. Based on an already quick card, – only beaten by putting two on the one card -. This card single-handedly brings all of the advantage the über Noids have enjoyed with water-cooling without any of the risk. Sealed water-cooling systems can now be considered consumer products, they have left the specialty department and joined the rest of us. It’s cooler, it’s quieter, it’s faster but will it cook your dinner ?
CUSTOM DESIGNED COOLING SOLUTION:
- Up to 30% Cooler temperatures than the reference designed GTX 580
- Up to 30% Quieter than the original GTX 580
- All in one design
- Maintenance Free!
- Simple Installation with standard size 120mm radiators that fits in a wide variety of popular cases
EXTREME OVERCLOCKED PERFORMANCE GRAPHICS CARD:
- 30% Faster than the referenced designed GTX 580 graphics card
- Same form factor as the standard GTX 580 for easy installation in a wide variety of popular cases
- Experience your games like never before with extreme performance and high frame rate without the heat.
Key Features
- Full Microsoft DirectX 11 support
- NVIDIA CUDA™ technology support
- DirectCompute 5.0 Support
- OpenCL Support
- NVIDIA PhysX™ technology
- NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround Ready1
- NVIDIA PureVideo HD technology2
- Dual-Link HDCP-Capable3
- OpenGL 4.1 support
- 5 Year warranty
PNY Homepage, PNY and Asetek Press Release, XLR8 Liquid Cooled GTX 580
Video Demo. Overclocking the XLR8 Liquid Cooled GTX 580
Buddha’s Brother out…
