Swiftech Releases Komodo HD5800 F/C Waterblock For ATI

[Philwong]

Your final statement either shows a poor understanding of the thermal and mechanical requirements to cool these vrm's or an unabated support for your favorite brand, both of which are perfectly understandable and acceptable I should say. I would hope nonetheless that my response above will shed some more light for you on the problem at hands.

As vendors, we make choices as to what we want to accomplish with respect to our users. I already said and demonstrated in our lab that our solution can cool the VRM's just as well as any other extreme solution. The reality is, the heat loads for these components are such that just about ANY full-cover solution providing a decent TIM will cool them enough to be substantially below operating specs. The difference as I pointed above, is that we try really hard to do it safely.

Gabe, the EK is superb in VRM cooling but is quite a hassle to install. Whereas the Komodo is quite the opposite with the added advantage of better GPU cooling. The difference here is EK is channeling coolant over the VRM, while Komodo uses micro pins for the GPU. Like I mentioned earlier, the thermal paste tweak should work for EK and its already low VRM temp as well. To me, it is a matter of personal priorities until a near-perfect block appears. For the record, I'm not affiliated with EK and neither do I own any of their products.

May I suggest you contact the German reviewer to carry out third party testing between your block and EK's using thermal paste for the VRM? Could you also share with us the resolution and AA settings used during your in-house testing and whether the heat output increases appropriately with higher Furmark settings?

In addition, it may be advisable to warm your customers that there may be contact issue when using paste instead of pads regardless of whether they are seasoned or advanced users. At least could bench or evaluate the card cautiously after installation.

Lastly, if you could revise the block and force the coolant to flow closer to the VRM, that could be the safest solution to enhance Komodo's performance.

Phil