While it is common to see hardcore enthusiasts install liquid-cooling blocks on their graphic cards, it seems that there are increasing numbers of manufacturers starting to offer factory-installed liquid-cooled graphics card as of late. Some goes even further by offering a combination of both liquid and air cooling in one single product and one of the latest attempt in having such product came from a joint effort by MSI as well as Corsair.
Even though they are essentially the same product, somehow both companies decided to have two different names and packaging for their new co-developed product. Specifically, MSI calls the card as the GeForce TX 980 Ti Sea Hawk while Corsair named it as Hydro GFX.
Built with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti GPU and 6GB worth of GDDR5, there is a conflicting information on how the hybrid cooling works on the card depending on who you asked. MSI stated that the liquid cooling specifically handles the heat from the GPU while the air cooling solution is responsible to cool down the card’s memory chips and voltage regulator modules. While on another hand, Corsair said the liquid cooling solution handles all three parts of the graphics that we mentioned above even though the air cooling setup is clearly visible on Hydro GFX.
Nevertheless, both companies pointed out that the liquid cooling setup that being installed into the card is actually the well-known Corsair H55 closed loop solution which consisted of a micro-fin copper cooling block, a low-profile aluminum radiator and a variable speed 120 mm fan. Additionally, they also stated the hybrid thermal solution pretty much allows the card to have with lower noise and operating temperature while running at higher clock speed as shown by this chart:
While we have no idea regarding its availability and price in Malaysia at the moment, the card is priced at USD 739.99 (around RM 3,125) in United States. So, that should mean something for those who are interested to get their hands on this graphics card.
