The Titan and GTX780 are cards that can run hot when overclocked despite the advanced air cooler. In addition Nvidia’s insistence on throttling back performance based on power means that a waterblock will also unleash another ~5% or so of power headroom because a fan does not have to be powered. In addition with the release of bioses that can unleash higher power limits and voltage overrides via software the weak VRMs are now running much hotter than intended. While Nvidia may have tried limit more extreme overclocking and hence RMA returns they have certainly not suceeded. Waterblocks are therefore necessary to really get the best out of the card while preserving life by keeping the circuits cooler.

In this review we looked at 7 water blocks. So let’s look at the different considerations:

Thermal Performance

The GPU core performance was very similar across all blocks, particularly at high flows. However XSPC was the king beating all other blocks across the entire range of flow tested.

However as mentioned, VRM temperatures for the extreme overclockers can be a larger concern, and this area combined with VRAM temperatures was dominated by EK with a large lead.

Flow and Block Restriction

While the least restrictive block was the Swiftech/EVGA, it only had a slight lead over the EK and Koolance. I would take that trade off in order to keep VRMs a little cooler. At the other extreme the Aquacomputer was very restrictive and did not make up for it with higher performance.

Price

As can be seen many blocks are similar in price. The best value for money is the cheapest block – the EK can be as cheap as $99 if you don’t buy a backplate and still wins a gold award. While XSPC used to undercut others on price, this block is more complex in design and so is now more expensive than EK. Having said that it still wins a gold award and is still good value for money.

The EVGA on the other hand is terrible value. For the exact same performance the Swiftech is cheaper by at least $20 but $40 if you need a backplate too. It’s 70% more than the copper EK block and it really doesn’t justify that with the performance.

Ease of use, fitting and quality

All the blocks were easy to fit except the EVGA/Swiftech. I did not notice any real quality issues with any of the blocks.

Aesthetics

Although aesthetics are really a personal choice I have to hand it to AquaComputer. The nickel plexi version of their block is absolutely gorgeous. The ugly award really goes to the EVGA hydrocopper.

Recommendations:

In terms of performance and price the XSPC and EK are both top of the pile. The EK block is more suited towards those running non stock bioses and pushing the VRMs far higher than intended. The XSPC on the other hand beats the EK on the core temperatures, particularly at low flow. They are both good choices though and therefore both win gold awards.

Both the Koolance and Watercool blocks do well and are also not bad choices and are close runners up.

Gold Award – XSPC Razor Titan/GTX780 Waterblock

Gold Award – EK EK-FC Titan/GTX780 Waterblock

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

17 COMMENTS

  4. Your tests make absolutely no sense at all. They contradict themselves. For example your average GPU temps vs. flow chart puts the EK block as the worst performing. That is pretty much the meat of a block’s performance, it’s ability to cool tge GPU. Yet you gave the EK your best score. Do you put that much importance to VRAM temps? Hell, I don’t even look at that. I couldn’t tell you my VRAM temps without looking at them first.

    How could you give your hottest GPU running one your best award?

    • Did you read the whole thing?

      A gold award was also given to the XSPC block as well which had the best core performance and decent VRM performance. It was pointed out that if you favor core temps then choose XSPC and if you are overclocking hard and are concerned about VRM temps (not VRAM temps) that you might want to consider the EK. In both cases at normal flow rates the difference in core temps between the EK and the other blocks is not that large. It only significantly departs at low flow rates. Bear in mind the hardcore overclockers will run 1.3V on the core while I was running 1.212V and hadn’t even overclocked the memory. Hardcore overclockers will have far worse VRM temps that I saw where the worst blocks were already 60C over ambient. I agree VRAM temps don’t matter as much, but I do care about VRM temps when they are 60C above ambient. I tried to give the reader a choice and if like you they only care about core temps then they should choose the XSPC 🙂

  5. Could you explain why the EKSE block has a higher Delta, despite it having a larger coverage over the gpu? It seems like a mixup or it could be something I don’t understand.
    Thanks.

    • The core cooling depends on a lot of factors – total surface area e.g. number of fins, depth of fins, total cooling engine size etc. Also distance and bow of block from the GPU core and of course flow rate. Back during the 2012 CPU block roundup I took a look at the cooling engine sizes and tried to see if I could find any patterns between the performance and any of the metrics I could measure. Sadly I could not correlate the two, although I was unable to measure the depth of the channel which is a pretty big deal.

  6. […] Nvidia GTX780/Titan Water Block Roundup | ExtremeRigs.net | Page 2 VRM temps on EK blocks are quite a bit better. I have found this has a big impact on GK110 reference card overclocking. __________________ CMS83X MK3 Stacker Big Lian Li Forever Alone […]

  7. […] Nvidia GTX780/Titan Water Block Roundup | ExtremeRigs.net | Page 2 VRM temps on EK blocks are quite a bit better. I have found this has a big impact on GK110 reference card overclocking. __________________ CMS83X MK3 Stacker Big Lian Li Forever Alone […]

  11. Well, all comes down to looks, performance differences are small, all better than air, sadly this review does not include VRAM & VRM on air.
    But I really like the looks of aqua computer nickel/plexi+back plate, even it’s so restrictive, that can be solved.
    Water cool seems the most balanced! but looks so annoying, not for me.

  13. Im having a hard time understanding why you would give the EK block a gold award based on the tests that you admit weren’t at all accurate and the data was showing issues with the tests “so you knew it couldn’t be right” and yet you still decided it was accurate enough to use, and as a result the EK block received a 9/10.. Im not saying it does not deserve a 9/10 as i cant say how inaccurate the vrm and vram tests were, but when the card jumps up to a 9/10 because of the tests. then they really do need to be pretty accurate.

    • This was the first time we measured VRM temps so there was some uncertainty. It was later verified by improved testing on later block round ups. At some point the core results seemed similar enough and so decisions had to be based on other factors. At the end of the day we hope that the reviews educate you enough to rate the blocks in your own way (which may lead to a different overall conclusion) 🙂 There’s never one single correct answer on all of this 🙂

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