While Nvidia stuck with an air cooler for its GeForce 8800 GTX reference design, and most of the company's partners are staying close to that design, water cooling is definitely on some companies' minds. We've already seen SilenX's prototype waterblock for the card, which allowed some German tweakers to push a GeForce 8800 GTX's core clock speed from 575MHz to 660MHz without making it catch on fire. We've now noticed that both BFG Tech and Galaxy have launched GeForce 8800 GTX cards with integrated waterblocks. The Galaxy version even goes a step further, bundling one of Zalman's Reserator 2 water cooling systems with the card itself.
As impressive as a graphics card with its own bundled water cooling system may be, though, it's worth pointing out that the GeForce 8800 GTX's stock air cooler is actually one of the quietest solutions we've seen in our noise level tests. Water cooling might therefore not be a requirement to build a quiet system around the card.
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