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7970 Lightning, worth the premium?

Delay on the block was apparently down to some missed vrm and a new clamp being added :)

Build is almost back up and running.
 
7970 LTG WATERBLOCK IS NOW IN PRODUCTION!!

Ready for sale by 27th of July, great news as the steam sale and broken PSU's will have finished demolishing my bank account.

Edit: It also looks like we don't have to shell out for EK backplates either, pictures show the block fitted with the MSI backplate/reactor core. Its also one of the most full covering blocks I've ever seen :D

Poor cleeecooo.....acetal only blocks!

Hi res images on EK's FB page.
 
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pgi947 said:
7970 LTG WATERBLOCK IS NOW IN PRODUCTION!!

Ready for sale by 27th of July, great news as the steam sale and broken PSU's will have finished demolishing my bank account.

Edit: It also looks like we don't have to shell out for EK backplates either, pictures show the block fitted with the MSI backplate/reactor core. Its also one of the most full covering blocks I've ever seen :D

Poor cleeecooo.....acetal only blocks!

Hi res images on EK's FB page.
Click to expand...

Yay! I think this may be their best block yet. Hopefully they make enough that me buying four doesn't dent their supply too much on launch day. :D
 
Ah sweet! Been waiting for these blocks for what seems like aaaaaages.

Sorry for the ignorance but what is the difference of Acetal vs whatever else is available? Copper right?!

Thanks in advance.

Tom
 
You commonly get with EK(with mainstream cards i.e. reference):

Copper Acetal
Copper Plexi
Nickel Acetal
Nickel Plexi

Copper/nickel is the base metal for the block, while acetal/plexi is just a kind of 'top' for looks.

In the case of the LTG block it looks like we are restricted to Copper Acetal, its no big deal (for me) and quite common for EK only to make one or two types of block for an aftermarket PCB card as generally overall sales of the cards are lower which means less demand for all the variations.

Edit: Also the base metal nickel blocks are usually nickel plated copper.
 
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Copper/Acetal works for me as that is the one I wanted in the first place lol. It will be interesting to see what these cards will do on a beast liquid cooling setup and/or hooked up to my future chilled Geo-thermal cooling loop.
 
Vega said:
Copper/Acetal works for me as that is the one I wanted in the first place lol. It will be interesting to see what these cards will do on a beast liquid cooling setup and/or hooked up to my future chilled Geo-thermal cooling loop.
Click to expand...

now, I hate to be pedantic (actually, no I don't, I love to be pedantic)

geothermal means heat generated within the earth... so you are going to use the heat from the earth to cool your PC?

I think you mean subsurface cooling

either that or you are going to run a geothermal power plant in your yard to power a refrigeration unit
 
Geothermal doesn't always mean "hotter" than something else. IE: a reference temperature.

The system is based off of sub-surface conductive heat transfer, but it is still Geothermal cooling.

http://www.earthtoair.com/how-geothermal-heating-and-cooling-works.php


Geothermal heat pumps

Even in regions without large high temperature geothermal resources, a geothermal heat pump can still provide space heating and air conditioning. Like a refrigerator or air conditioner, these systems use a heat pump to force the transfer of heat from the ground to the application. In theory, heat can be extracted from any source, no matter how cold, but a warmer source allows higher efficiency. A ground-source heat pump uses the shallow ground or ground water (typically starting at 10–12 °C, 50–54 °F) as a source of heat, thus taking advantage of its seasonally moderate temperatures.[9] In contrast, an air-source heat pump draws heat from the air (colder outside air) and thus requires more energy.

Switching the direction of heat flow, the same system can be used to circulate the cooled water through the house for cooling in the summer months. The heat is exhausted to the relatively cooler ground (or groundwater) rather than delivering it to the hot outside air as an air conditioner does. As a result, the heat is pumped across a larger temperature difference and this leads to higher efficiency and lower energy use.


They key to the system for cooling a computer is that the ground water temperature is always below the temperature of the interior of the home, the temperature is very stable, the ground can absorb tons of energy in a properly sized cooling loop, and the only energy used in this type of cooling system is the liquid pump. So during all seasons of the year my computer will be fed 10-14 C water.
 
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Vega said:
Geothermal doesn't always mean "hotter" than something else. IE: a reference temperature.

The system is based off of sub-surface conductive heat transfer, but it is still Geothermal cooling.

http://www.earthtoair.com/how-geothermal-heating-and-cooling-works.php


Geothermal heat pumps

Even in regions without large high temperature geothermal resources, a geothermal heat pump can still provide space heating and air conditioning. Like a refrigerator or air conditioner, these systems use a heat pump to force the transfer of heat from the ground to the application. In theory, heat can be extracted from any source, no matter how cold, but a warmer source allows higher efficiency. A ground-source heat pump uses the shallow ground or ground water (typically starting at 10–12 °C, 50–54 °F) as a source of heat, thus taking advantage of its seasonally moderate temperatures.[9] In contrast, an air-source heat pump draws heat from the air (colder outside air) and thus requires more energy.

Switching the direction of heat flow, the same system can be used to circulate the cooled water through the house for cooling in the summer months. The heat is exhausted to the relatively cooler ground (or groundwater) rather than delivering it to the hot outside air as an air conditioner does. As a result, the heat is pumped across a larger temperature difference and this leads to higher efficiency and lower energy use.


They key to the system for cooling a computer is that the ground water temperature is always below the temperature of the interior of the home, the temperature is very stable, the ground can absorb tons of energy in a properly sized cooling loop, and the only energy used in this type of cooling system is the liquid pump. So during all seasons of the year my computer will be fed 10-14 C water.
Click to expand...

Sounds interesting Vega. So how do you do it then, bury a huge radiator 6 feet under?
 
the word geothermal literally means heat produced from within the earth

just because an american company obviously doesn't know the meaning of the word doesn't necessarily make them right

running some pipes in the ground to dump heat away from a home / PC isn't geothermal, it's just thermal, they've chucked the geo in their just because it's sounds more high tech than "well yeah we're going to bury some copper pipe in your garden and pump water through it"
 
Cleee to go universal you would need to leave the heatsink plate on and add airflow to cool the memory and vrms.
 
andybird123 said:
the word geothermal literally means heat produced from within the earth

just because an american company obviously doesn't know the meaning of the word doesn't necessarily make them right

running some pipes in the ground to dump heat away from a home / PC isn't geothermal, it's just thermal, they've chucked the geo in their just because it's sounds more high tech than "well yeah we're going to bury some copper pipe in your garden and pump water through it"
Click to expand...

Uh-huh. Geo is the Greek word for "Earth".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heat_pump

A geothermal heat pump, ground source heat pump (GSHP), or ground heat pump[1] is a central heating and/or cooling system that pumps heat to or from the ground.

Not talking about using geothermal power, something completely different.
 
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