Custom PC – October 2019

ANTONY LEATHER’S

Customised PC

Case mods, tools, water-cooling gear and modding

MODDING / OPINION

Corsair’s RTX

2070 FE block

also fits on the

RTX 2060 Super

The large copper

heatsink on Aorus’

SSD clashes

with the colour

scheme on some

motherboards

T^

he mid-range likes of
Nvidia’s GTX 1060 6GB
and RTX 2060 might be
superb cards that have retailed for
significant amounts of cash, but there
have been no full-cover waterblocks
available for them from reputable
manufacturers. The RTX 2060 has
been priced between £300 and £400,
depending on the model, and it seems
bizarre to me that water-cooling a
card in that price range is so difficult.
In fact, I’ve spent far less money on
graphics cards with readily available full-
cover waterblocks in the past. Given the
rise of mini-ITX systems over the past
few years, water cooling is an excellent
way to keep GPU cooling in check in
the tight confines of small cases with
meagre airflow.

That’s before we get into the aesthetics

of the situation, which is the main

reason why many of us water-cool

our PCs. I don’t think wanting to

water-cool a graphics card that costs

close to £400 is unreasonable.

The same can’t be said for AMD’s

Vega and Navi cards. Both line-ups have

had decent water-cooling support, and

the Radeon RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT

will both be getting full-cover

waterblocks from the likes of EKWB in

the very near future. I’ll be taking a look

at them when they arrive soon, showing

you how to water-cool a new Navi card.

There’s another kid on the block too,

of course – Nvidia’s RTX Super series.

Given the higher prices for some of

these models over their predecessors

(with the RTX 2060 Super retailing for

closer to £400), my waterblock rage

kicked in again. However, rather than

being another tricky series of GPUs to

water-cool, the RTX Super models are

actually much more water-cooling-

friendly than their predecessors from

the start.

This is thanks to them using similar

PCBs to the cards above them in the

previous generation. For example, the

RTX 2060 Super Founders Edition uses

a near-identical PCB to the RTX 2070.

Similarly, the RTX 2070 Super is a cut-

down RTX 2080 in terms of both spec

and physical layout – its PCB is identical

to that of its older bigger sibling.