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Alphacool NVXP-G8 GPU copper waterblock ... GPU watercooling that's right for the enthusiasts

Introduction

Alphacool - The Cooling Company is based in Germany and specialise in watercooling for the PC. They produce high quality copper waterblocks for CPUs, GPUs and Chipsets, as well as LCD displays for monitoring your system. Other products which they also produce include pumps, radiators, coolant and watercooling accessories. Over the past year or so, Alphacool has grown tremendously, expanding their products to include a new range of high quality waterblocks for both CPU and GPU. With this expansion, they now have distributors worldwide reaching as far as Taiwan, Japan and Australia.

Watercooling is really something only hardcore enthusiasts would consider. You will need a lot of planning, money and patience ... it's certainly not a case of plugging all the watercooling bits and go. It's important to get the right watercooling components, these include the right waterblock for CPU, GPU and chipset, the pump, radiator and resevoir ... all of which will cost money. There are watercooling kits available on the market, but for the true enthusiast, they will only pick the best components depending on their budget.

I'm an avid fab of watercooling. And the reason being, the benefits that it offers. These includes lower noise level, better overclocking results, and it really makes your system stand out from the rest. Many people that use watercooling, usually start off by getting a waterblock for their processor. It's one of the first watercooled components in your system. Next, they might consider watercooling their graphics card and chipset as well. Watercooling a graphics card or chipset is no different from watercooling your processor, as it works on the same principle. As watercooling becomes more and more popular among ethusiasts, we will see a lot more watercooling components on the market. Already, there are plenty of waterblocks in the market for processors, but now we are also seeing a lot of waterblocks for graphics cards and chipset.

In this review, our CPU3D review team will be taking a look at the Alphacool NVXP-G8 GPU copper waterblock. This waterblock is designed to be compatible with Nvidia's Geforce 8800GTS graphic cards, and it's made from pure copper for efficient heat transfer. The waterblock features ready-to-fit inlet and oulet for mounting 10/8mm connectors, and comes with thermal paste, thermal pads for the ram chips and mosfets.

We will be installing this waterblock on our Asus EN8800GTS graphics card. Once fully fitted and secured, we will then take this modified graphics card and adding it to our watercooling test rig. We're expecting some good cooling results both for idle and load. We will not be overclocking our graphics card as we don't see the need to.

OK, let's not waste any more time and see how well this Alphacool NVXP-G8 GPU copper waterblock, will cool our Geforce 8800GTS.

Review sample supplied by Specialtech.co.uk