After the succesful and well received launch of AMD’s tasty R9-295×2 dual GPU card it seems that Nvidia has delayed the launch of their Titan Z card as it was due to launch on April 29th. Although labelled and priced as a compute and not a gaming card we suspect this is due to gaming performance that was behind the 295×2.
The 295×2 used a hybrid closed loop liquid cooling system that enabled it to maintain full 2x 290X performance with lower noise than a regular 290x. Nvidia historically has chosen to cripple it’s dual GPU cards in order to maintain low noise (and a strict adherence to a 375W power limit) while using an air cooler. The crippling therefore was probably enough that the Titan Z would benchmark below the 295×2 and as we know Nvidia is only willing to pull out all the stops when there is competition 😉
We’ll see what happens with the Titan Z but unless the price drops there is still simply no point in buying it for gaming unless there is a significant price drop. If you want Nvidia Quad SLI buy 4 of the top of the line single GPU cards such as the Classified or Lightning and add water blocks for higher clocks and a much better price. Even 6GB versions of the classy will be available if VRAM is your concern. Even for compute you can buy 4x titan blacks for 2K less.
In the mean time if AIO cooling is not your thing and you don’t want to wait for the powercool devil 13 295×2 three slotter for air cooling then the first of the full waterblocks have been launched. AquaComputer was first to show off their beauty:
As usual there will be a nickel plated version as well and we expect this to be a single slotter also.
Koolance also announced their 295×2 block:
We’re liking Koolance’s decision to keep with the full cover style and the move away from the “ribbed” design on the 290x block.
EK also showed off their block – as usual we expect there will be multiple versions – plexi copper, plexi nickel, acetal copper and acetal nickel. There may even be CSQ versions EK is yet to confirm with the usual press release.
Given that there were 7990 blocks from XSPC and Swiftech we firmly expect to see XSPC’s soon, and Swiftech’s to arrive by year end 😉
Seeing as we’re on the topic of waterblocks, Watercool are making a Rampage IV Extreme Black Edition motherboard block – we love that they are doing this. Too many manufacturers have left the motherboard blocks to EK and XSPC and end users like to match their blocks leading to lost sales for those who won’t offer motherboard blocks:
However if you’re focussed on every last degree you might want to wait for EK’s monoblock. In our Impact testing we saw that the monoblock performed better thermally as well as being lower restriction than a standalone CPU block. We expect the same to apply to this block. Here’s a photo of the early engineering sample with mixed metals – obviously the final product would be all copper or all nickel, and also come in acetal as an option too:
That’s all the news for now!
