EK-FC 79 waterblock arrived today!! (56K warning)

Only 6 days after ordering i got my fullcover waterblock for my 7900GT extreme edition.

To say i was very impressed with the first look would be a huge understatement, let the pics do the talking:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...s/IMG_1887.jpg
What can you say?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...s/IMG_1888.jpg
Possibility to fit fittings on both sides.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...s/IMG_1886.jpg
The beautifully machined channels. :eek:

Unfortunately the plugs to shut off the unused holes weren't included, i emailed Eddy about this and he promised me to send them immidiately, so service is top notch. :up:

The copper side was alittle stained but a few minutes of messing with some ketchup took care of that.
I will take some pics tommorow as the light is already fading over here.

As soon as i have the plugs i will show more pics and results, my 7900GT with 1.4Vgpu mod is reaching a blistering 76C(!!!) under load with the crappy stock cooler, i'm sure this block will do a hell of a lot better.

Stay tuned. ;)

Wow.
Even though many people here dislike Full Cover blocks with Passion :p
One has to admit the craftsmanship is very impressive.

Where or Whom did you buy this from

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zenjirou

Wow.
Even though many people here dislike Full Cover blocks with Passion :p
One has to admit the craftsmanship is very impressive.

Where or Whom did you buy this from

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deffiently agreed.


very nice looking block. so sexy

Very nice block indeed. :up:
I've heard that it's one of the best full cover blocks. The only thing i don't like is the vertical placed inlet/outlet.

nice block :toast:

I have always been in love with the NV-78 full cover block from DangerDen but found it too expensive (besides having no card to put it on :))so i lost interest.

Then i found this one for almost half the price so i decided to roll the dice.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zenjirou

Wow.
Where or Whom did you buy this from

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Sorry, i'm not gonna post a link, that will make this thread look like an advert.
Just google for "EK waterblocks" and you will be taken there.

Here in Greece they charge (sit down if u're not) 125€ for DD NV-78!!! :stick:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JoeBar

Here in Greece they charge (sit down if u're not) 125€ for DD NV-78!!! :stick:

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:eek:

I have more...
75€ for a bip 3.

what about d5 or ddc?

or the apogee or storm?

aprox:

d5= 105
ddc= 100
apogee= 62.5
storm= 100

euro that is!

Norway!

OK let's see. D5 is @ 110€, DDC isn't available. Apogee is @ 60€ Storm isn't available (i wonder why... :p: ).
The case is that a year ago there wasn't any descent wc'ing stores here and now that there are they believe that we don't have internet nor credit cards... :stick:

Sorry for the tread hijacking Zeus... :)

Yeah, EK blocks are nice, I love mine... even though I managed to crush my X1900XTX with it out of sheer ham-handedness - for the love of god be careful if you have the power regulator extension, those things are MAJOR FRAGILE.

Im using the stock pad on my new X1900, between power regs and the block.

Oh and btw, prepare for a fun game of "put the o-ring back in place" if you ever take it apart :P

wait so how much is it for one in the us?

can we get a pic of the other side :D

I like the added touch of rounding off the edges.

That block looks perfect hehe. :D

Looks extremely well built. I hate most full cover water blocks, this one looks like it won me over.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nanometer

Looks extremely well built. I hate most full cover water blocks, this one looks like it won me over.

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Ditto.

I prefer a Maze4 and sinks over full cover blocks too :banana:

It is very pretty. Too bad you have to sit on your hands until the plugs arrive. Have fun with it. :)

I´d go with maze4 and sinks too, the machining on that stuff is awesome though

can you take a picture of the underside of the block.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by creidiki

Yeah, EK blocks are nice, I love mine... even though I managed to crush my X1900XTX with it out of sheer ham-handedness - for the love of god be careful if you have the power regulator extension, those things are MAJOR FRAGILE.

Im using the stock pad on my new X1900, between power regs and the block.

Oh and btw, prepare for a fun game of "put the o-ring back in place" if you ever take it apart :P

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Yeah, i've read your story on the regulator-disaster, mine is without this extension.
Neither did i plan to take it apart, i can image what "fun" it will be to get the o-ring back in place. :D
I'm gonna be very carefull though, thanks for warning.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ReD.SkY

wait so how much is it for one in the us?

can we get a pic of the other side :D

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I don't know about shipping to the US but mine was send by Slovenian post which was about €11,-
The price for the block itself is about half the price of the NV-78. ;)

As requested, a pic of the backside:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...s/IMG_1906.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zeus

Yeah, i've read your story on the regulator-disaster, mine is without this extension.
Neither did i plan to take it apart, i can image what "fun" it will be to get the o-ring back in place. :D
I'm gonna be very carefull though, thanks for warning.



I don't know about shipping to the US but mine was send by Slovenian post which was about €11,-
The price for the block itself is about half the price of the NV-78. ;)

As requested, a pic of the backside:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...s/IMG_1906.jpg

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beautiful :toast:

What barbs are you using? They don't look like my EK barbs?
http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/2165/barb24ev.jpg

they do. they are. hes got the spacer (with o-ring) that eddy provides to stop the barb from poking into the block and disrupting waterflow.

these blocks are works of art :)

yea nah i tried out my first EK -> USA experience with eddy this weekend and it was great so far. got some of his famous 1/2" barbs (g1/4) and the shipping was harmless. same ship cost if i were to buy barbs from dangerden, oh but an overall cheaper buy hahah.

and yea man EK got some awsome full coverage. i have always been interested in full coverage blocks simply for the fact that they have the potential to remove a GREAT amount of ambient heat from my case and chipset area (one less fan would have to be run and wired). and then for EK to make a cheap but WELL performing one.... im actuually still saving for it to reasearch and buy 2 of em one day.

now can anyone tell me. if i have 6800GT's now, then wanna go to 7900gt's and then god knows what, will the eddy blocks at least suffice for the current forseaable upgrades?

and OP, i would love to see some results and impressions after you get em done. i had no idea about hte "either side barb installation" thing, that makes em even more attractive.

every card is diff, 6800 card does 6800 and 7800 does 7800 and 7900...

yeah, its the SLi/Crossfire-ready option. Ive got it too, even though im using both barbs on the copper side atm.

i wanna know about the change in gpu ambient temps. i mean there is a considerable amount of heat to be pooling at the ends of the cards wit the vregs, mosfets, and ram sinks all there, with usually the lower card obviously hotter.

the card does run a little hotter @ core temps, mostly because of the added heat from ram & mosfet going into the block & loop. also its harder to get a good mount because its straight screws on pcb, you should really count the screw turns and take the block on-off multiple time to get the best mount but im far too lazy for that.

i havent really looked at gpu ambient temps because that figure is useless, it doesent represent GDDR3 or mosfet temps (which are lower than stock soolinh with fan pointed at, btw).

overall im quite satisfied.

do you (or anyone else for that matter) have an sli setup with this or any other good full coverage block? if so can you like sitck your hand in between the cards and see how the heat levels of the air there is? ha its silly but the concept of gettin rid of some of that ambient heat and dumping it into the water is very attractive to me.

hey maybe if i post here he'll answer... eddy, whats the status on the delrin tops? :P

Aren't those barbs 90 degrees to the flow? Looks like a classic elbow problem?

you mean they way barbs are 90 degrees to the flow in ANY gpu block? :)

They dont poke into the channel, and the channel has a cross-section like a 1/2ID tube, i doubt it makes much of a difference. And you couldnt close the case if they were poking straight out.

The barbs on my Maze4 gpu lie on the same plane as the flow of water and don't add an unnecessary bend.

... no, the water has to take a 90 dgree turn in a maze 4 as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by creidiki

... no, the water has to take a 90 dgree turn in a maze 4 as well.

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Understood, which is why I said unnecessary bends. :D Better only 1 90 degree turn instead of 3?

*shrug*

its a full-cover block, how else are you going to do it?

@ creidiki. Have u gained anything in mem oc with this block?

Havent even tried mate, imo current X1*00 OCing tools arent ready yet. Too messy and buggy. I went back to overdrive, and that'll be it until I finish my exams at least. When it comes to the end of the day and i cba to study anymore I just wanna play games, not mess about with my rig's stability... my new opty is still @ stock =/

Thnx. :)
BTW u can try rivatuner. U can mod it to work with a X1900.

Link pls? (of mod, i know where to get rivatuner).

DH OC tool is nice but no autoprofiile @ boot option, and ATITool... well, W1zzard is burnt out and hasnt touched the code in at least a month, even to add A8R32-MVP support to SysTool, which forces me to use speedfan =/

Here u are m8! :)

Looks interesting, but it also looks like R16 might just be the best 7900 and X18/1900 OCing tool around, so I'll hold my horses till the 22nd :)

I'm using 1.5RC18 for my 7900GTX without probs. Just needs a simple mod.

Right, but X1900 OCing is little more complicated, as there is driver-level voltage and frequency shifting that I havent seen fully implemented in any piece of software apart from the R16 changelog.

I know m8. In the past month i've gone from a X1900XT -> XTX -> 7900GTX. ;)

Maybe i'll switch back to x1900xtx if i get bored... :p:

UPDATE:

Got the plugs in yesterday. :banana:
Mounting the card wasn't too hard actually, draining, refilling and bleeding the waterloop wasn't fun on the other hand.

Somehow i managed without damage. :)

Pics:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...s/IMG_1924.jpg
perfect contact. :up:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...s/IMG_1923.jpg
block mounted

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...s/IMG_1920.jpg
backside

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...s/IMG_1917.jpg
1.4Vmod hardwired


Temps were the thing that really shocked me, it took 40 degrees of of my load temps!!! :banana:

Went from 76C load down to 37C, idle is 31C.
CPU temps remained the same, so no real flowrestrictions here.

Overclock was a bit dissapointing, only about 10MHz on the core and 20 on the mem.

Still, the idea of having very good temps now puts me at ease.
I will take some pictures of the complete system later, it's still a bit messy now.

Overall, i'm happy. :)

hell yes! lovely pics! and i love how it fits on the 79gt which is the card i wanna get whenever i stop using my 68gt's!

fits nicely and looks lovely. hopefully no bending of the card too much? its it a lot heavier now? what abou the ambient temps around the card area? when the sys is on and runnin is it cool in there by the card?

No bending at all, the card is completely straight.
The space around the card feels cool due to my airflow, so don't know about that.

Ambient is 22C and yes, the card is a hell of a lot heavier, +550gram to be precise. :D

Unfortunatly, the card is starting to act up on me in 3D.
Lock-ups,black screens, flickering screen, BSOD's, you name it.
I'm positive i didn't kill it, been threating this thing like a baby, nothing strange happend and there's no physical damage.

Removed the Vmod and the waterblock but no love.
Gonna return it tommorow. :(

Sorry to hear about your probs. :(
Hope it will be replaced soon.

Heh, slovenian product, what else have u expected? Pure engineering :P

off topic, but,
why does your 7900GT have Korean written on the MIC sticker, when its
made in China? LoL...

Anyways, nice block, nice temps :D

Q: where would an american get one of these blocks? ???

Order direct. His shipping is so cheap a pair of his barbs costs less with shipping than getting a pair from gangerden...

Everything went fine, got a new 7900GT. :banana:
Did the 1.4Vgpu mod right away, the core is stable up to 709MHz with just 1.4V!!

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...1&d=1148130117

The waterblock works superb, 30C idle, 36C load, oc went from 685MHz with the stock cooler to 709MHz with the EK FC79. :)

The mem needs a bit of burn in, it's not 100% stable at 1800MHz but benchable.

nice!

planning on more V?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by eXa

nice!

planning on more V?

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Off course. :D

Nice results zeus! :)

Piece of art... :)
Don't kill the card (again) though ;)

Let's hope so mate. ;)

Here's a final pic of the block up and running:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...s/IMG_1943.jpg

That is a beautiful block Zeus. I might have to check out EK, they seem to have some really nice stuff. The base of the block looks outstanding.

EKs are like waterblock pr0n :D

They surely are! :lol:

ive got a 7900gt i bought from Hong Kong, so i dont want any faliures. i think the fact it doesnt use spring loaded fixings is the problem. so although its only £49 compared to £85, here in the UK, i might just get a new lid for my old Danger Den Maze 4 GPU.

Ill take my EK over any DD full cover pos any day tbh...

trouble is i cant aford any dead card situations and if it wasnt for the fact the standard fan is so noisy id leave it alone. i think some card faliures are due to the memory being pressed too hard, as there bga solder pads underneath the chips.

If your 7900GT is from Leadtek like your sig suggests, RMA services are via Leadtek, so no worries there.

I don't know what you mean by failures due to the RAM being pressed too hard, it's BGA chips which means Ball Grid Array.

So basically there 's no pins but balls instead, how do you think pushing the the balls onto the PCB would lead to a failure?

I don't get that really.

Yeah, the only way to break is to push so hard you crush something, and that can only really happen with the mosfets.. and that has the same chance of happening with the DD blocks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cypher007

trouble is i cant aford any dead card situations and if it wasnt for the fact the standard fan is so noisy id leave it alone. i think some card faliures are due to the memory being pressed too hard, as there bga solder pads underneath the chips.

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The problem that Zeus had was that card didn't take the pressure of voltmod.

Crediki problem was about putting too much pressure on one power reg. If you have 7900 GTX card there is much less chance that you will damage the Power regs.
:fact:

Does this block impact pressure/flow much? What kind of pump are you using?

I havent seen any impact on CPU temps since i switched from my maze 4. pump is in sig.

im running a 7900GT so does that mean i might crush the mosfet? i thought the mosfet was only on the GTX cards. the reason im worried is that some companies (ASUS) get all funny about people buying stuff in one country and then RMA'ing it from another country.

You have a 7900GT which means the VGA block is without the mosfetcooling, just like in the pictures.

I don't understand your concern about RMA policy, a videocard made by Asus for example has the same warrenty in the UK as in Hong Kong no?

apparently it doesnt. before i bought my motherboard in Hong Kong i asked Asus and they said id have to send it back to the retailer in Hong Kong :stick: . so i bought the DFI CFX3200, it seemed a better overclocker anyway, plus when i emailed them they said on this occasion they would honour the warranty from the UK.

cant get this ek-fc79 to work correctly, no matter how many times i mount it to my 7900gt i get artifacts. oh and at one point when i thought the card was screwed i contacted leadtek europe who said:

Thank you for your inquiry



The VGA board you owned was for using in Hong Kong and China only.



The warranty for we released VGA items is not global, so if the user got VGA card defeated to run by hardware faulty, he should request RMA service for it through the original distributor oversea.



The contact info is as follow:

support@kingfung.com.hk

sales@kingfung.com.hk

Tel: 852-2686 8616

so dont buy leadtek if you plan on moving country :slapass: . anyway do you guys think i could run this block with just the core coated in artic silver 5? as every time i use the artic silver ceramique on the ram chips i get artifacts. so was just gonna leave the ram chips clean against the clean waterblock. or could i use artic silver 5 on the ram chips also? though i heard this screws them up.

Manufacturer's warranty tends to rarely extend to UK if that manufacturer is in China / Taiwan / Japan etc or NorthAmerica. Always has to go to the shop you bought it from... and they're not obliged to provide you with any warranty outside of the country of purchase.

If you want warranty, buy from a UK outlet... only way it works when it comes to hardware...

cypher I had the same problems a few months ago with my 7800 GTX and the FC block...check there is good contact with all the rams cause I have an issue with ram. One ram chip was a little bit too low and it has no contact with the block.

Regards,
Primoz