Sapphire HD4870 X2 Atomic water-cooled graphics card

For starters, it’s expensive, with prices starting at £399. It’s also very long, measuring 267mm nose to tail, although in fairness that’s the same length as an Nvidia GeForce GTX 280. The third snag is that the double-slot design is bulky, gets darned hot and exhausts a jet of heated air from the rear of your PC.

Sapphire has come up with a dramatic solution to the issue of heat with its water-cooled Atomic HD4870 X2.

Water cooling your PC isn’t a new concept and it’s relatively easy to add a water block, pump and radiator to keep your CPU cool. Doing the same for your graphics card is a different proposition as you have to dismantle the original cooler before you attach the VGA water block and hook it into the cooling loop.

Did you hear that whooshing noise? That was the sound of your warranty flying out through the window.

If you fancy water-cooling your Radeon HD 4870 X2, you can connect it to your existing system with a water block from the likes of EKWaterBlocks at a cost of £85. Add in two hose fittings and some tubing and the cost comes to about a hundred quid.

Sapphire’s take on things is rather more sophisticated, as the Atomic is a prebuilt cooling system that uses Asetek LCLC hardware that’s ready to plug into your PC. The GPU water block is attached to the HD 4870 X2 graphics card with six screws and covers both GPUs as well as the 2GB of GDDR 5 memory. The 6.3mm water hoses are connected to the CPU water block and the heat exchanger, which has a 120mm fan mounted piggyback style.

The CPU water block has the pump mounted on top and there’s no separate reservoir of coolant so the whole setup is compact and neat. Once the graphics card is installed and the CPU water block in place, you only have to attach the heat exchanger to a suitable mount inside your case, probably at the top, and you’re good to go. There are no hose connections to make, no coolant to fill, no bleeding and little likelihood of leaks.

source : www.reghardware.co.uk