Cooling GPUs Reviews Watercooling

Aqua Computer Kryographics Next for GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 Reference Design Review – Solid GPU water block for a hot card

A proper water cooling makes sense for power losses over 300 watts and thus creates a real added value. With the Kryographics Next, Aqua Computer continues on its path of precisely crafted coolers and offers a GPU water block for NVIDIA’s current GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 refernce boards that even manages without thermal pads on the memory. However, we also know that these NVIDIA GPUs aren’t exactly precision world champions and have already attracted negative attention several times due to bending. How and if this fits together, we will find out together today.

Scope of delivery and unboxing

The manufacturer has of course revised the cooler compared to its predecessors, but the basic principle remains. But let’s unpack all the fun first. What you get for the just under 165 Euros is a pre-assembled cooler with terminal including embedded 5V RGBpx stripe, a 50cm connection cable and matching Preci-Dip adapter, two plugs, all necessary screws, 1 gram thermal paste and 0.5 mm thermal pads. The manual is available in printed and digital form, exemplary. A backplate with cooling function can be purchased as an option.

Which brings us directly to the water block. With 980 grams this is quite a heavy lump, which is primarily due to the 12 mm copper block used. Why is it so thick? Let’s remember the reference design of the card! NVIDIA leaves it up to the board partners to decide whether to use flat SMD capacitors (SP or POS caps) on the front side, e.g. for the voltage converters, or the conventional and cheaper cup capacitors. However, they are relatively high, so you have to work with this enormous copper thickness if you don’t want to work with cutouts like Alphacool or Corsair.

The cover is made of acrylic (PMA), i.e. normal Plexi and milled, plus a stabilizing bezel made of black anodized light metal. Visually, everything is rather unexciting and timeless, which is absolutely no shortcoming, on the contrary. Of course, one also serves the intensely illuminated, colorful present and builds in an RGB stripe with 15 LEDs, which can also be connected via cable and adapter to any suitable digital 5 volt aRGB output of the motherboard. The terminal is made of acetal and anchored in the acrylic block with three solid screws.

The material used for the cooling block is electrolytic copper (nickel-plated in this model), but unfortunately there is no information about the thickness of the cooling fins, the channel width and the residual bottom thickness. Interestingly, however, they work with an extra jetplate made of stainless steel and lead the water on a direct path to the GPU, only then to lead it over the rest of the board.

The rear side shows the immense use of material very clearly, because the difference in level between the two external VRM cooling surfaces and the recesses for the caps is huge. Lots of copper and only one o-ring, that’s another philosophy that’s good to go with. The threaded inserts are neatly fitted and also sit neatly tight. By the way, the acrylic block is screwed from the back and not from the front, which is also quite rare. Otherwise, like Corsair, they used all available holes on the board for the screws.

A special feature, which one doesn’t see with the naked eye so at all, is the slightly concave elaboration of the GPU curvature, which one has imprinted here afterwards still with a maximum depth of 4/100 mm. One can do that on whom one could compensate something like that with thermal paste also still loosely. We’ll see how well that works out in the end in a moment.

By the way, if you want to use an RTX 3090 with rear RAM mounting, you won’t be able to get around the backplate, which is an absolute must in order to thermally tame the GDDR6X memory. In my case, I don’t need them for the RTX 3080 for now, if I want to provide comparable measurements to the other coolers. That this is only possible with the same board due to the unusually high tolerance limits of NVIDIA’s package, I’ll explain next. As a reminder and for better understanding, I have a link here to the appropriate article on NVIDIA’s manufacturing tolerances:

GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 with bended package – why water and air coolers have such a hard time (Link)

 

Selection of the test card and general problems when using the GA102

The requirements are similar to Turing, although this time I settled on a 340-watt setup and a very specific GeForce RTX 3080 because it was nearly impossible to find a reference-design RTX 3090 specifically for these cooler tests, and you also need a card that’s right in the middle of the tolerance range for package heights. At this point I have to add some important application tips, because the cooler will not always fit perfectly on these curved packages.

Are the really excellently low gap dimensions based on the manufacturer’s specifications perhaps even more of a curse than a blessing in the end, just because you did the math without the host, i.e. NVIDIA? Once you have cleaned the PCB as usual, you should first test it with a few thin blobs of the same height on the GPU and memory modules if possible. The picture shows that the slight bending of the GPU package and the board underneath leads to different sized impressions, which is due to the very uneven contact pressure.

Some things can be easily compensated with more paste, but if it is even more extreme, you have to use 0.5 mm pads for the memory modules and up to 1 mm pads for the voltage converters, whereby the ultra-soft pads with crumb factor should be used to adapt to the contours without much resistance. In my case, the package was still good average and it really could have been worse.

I also have to say something important about the thermal paste, because it is not that simple this time. Either you take the popular, very thin paste from the accessories and risk with too thick layers a slow running away or tearing off of the paste when drying out due to the curvature of chip and package, or you better use an at least equivalent, but more viscous (and thus more stable in the long term) paste, which then also stays where you have applied it.

For this reason, I’m going with Alphacool’s Subzero here as I did in the other tests, but it could have been Gelid’s GC Extreme or a similar good product. The main thing is not too slippery when the distances become too large.

Then you finally screw the whole thing together, connect the hoses and you’re done.

For those who are interested, I have simply attached the manual as a PDF, where the rest for the successful water battle is described:

RTX_3080_3090_Referenzlayout_DE

Aqua Computer kryographics NEXT RTX 3080/RTX 3090, Nickel (23685)

Aqua Computer Backplate für kryographics NEXT RTX 3080 aktiv XCS (23687)

Kommentar

Lade neue Kommentare

helpstar

1

1,753 Kommentare 494 Likes

@Igor Wallossek
war das beabsichtigt, dass der Artikel im Teambereich sitzt?

Antwort 1 Like

Igor Wallossek

1

10,105 Kommentare 18,594 Likes
FUSION5

Veteran

138 Kommentare 42 Likes

Und ich suche den Thread schon die ganze Zeit 😉

Mir persönlich gefällt die massive Bauweise wieder sehr gut. Ich frage mich, ob eine parallele Versorgung von GPU und VRM mit Frischwasser möglich gewesen wäre, ohne dabei wie Alphacool auf die zahlreichen Dichtungen zurückzugreifen. Andererseits machen ein paar Grad bei den VRM in der Praxis wohl auch keinen Unterschied.

Antwort Gefällt mir

S
SpiritWolf448

Veteran

120 Kommentare 31 Likes

Alter Schwede. Ich musste tatsächlich schmunzeln. Denn wie oft kommt es schon vor, das ein Wasserkühler zu genau produziert ist? 🤭
Aber allen Ernstes, "Danke" auch für diesen Test. Immer wieder schön zu lesen.

Antwort Gefällt mir

Igor Wallossek

1

10,105 Kommentare 18,594 Likes

Der Kühler wird mit steigendem Druck/Durchfluss immer besser. Bei GPX-N ändert sich ab ca. 120 l/h nichts mehr. Bei Kryo habe ich mal 180 l/h durchgejagt, das bringt selbst dann noch was. Man sollte ihn aber nicht in Low-Flow-Systeme einbauen. Und Druck ist das A und O. Hat schon mal jemand einen Server mit 16er Schläuchen gesehen? Also ich nicht. :D

Antwort 1 Like

FUSION5

Veteran

138 Kommentare 42 Likes

Wird in Servern bei identischen Kühlern nicht in der Regel parallel verschlaucht?

Antwort Gefällt mir

Megaone

Urgestein

1,703 Kommentare 1,600 Likes

Wie immer Top-Artikel. Gibt es in der Qualität sonst nirgendwo in Germany.

Antwort Gefällt mir

FUSION5

Veteran

138 Kommentare 42 Likes
Igor Wallossek

1

10,105 Kommentare 18,594 Likes

Ja, das ginge mit 16er eh nicht. Aber es gibt auch Mining-Rigs, da ist es eine Mischung aus seriell und parallel. je nach Einschub oder Aufbau.

Antwort Gefällt mir

B
Besterino

Urgestein

6,669 Kommentare 3,265 Likes

Och...

Finde gerade die Bilder von meiner Xeon-Kiste nicht, der ist ja auch unter Wasser... :D

Antwort Gefällt mir

C
Chris2000SP

Neuling

5 Kommentare 6 Likes

Guter Test.
Zu genau um Kühl zu sein? Sehr witzig. :D

Antwort Gefällt mir

Justin-Dustin Elijah

Mitglied

11 Kommentare 2 Likes

Schöner Kühler und Test.

Hat AC auch etwas zu Verfügbarkeit gesagt? Wie lange braucht es im moment von Bestellung bis zur Lieferung?
Wenn ich mir den AC Shop angucke scheinen die CNC-Fräsen gut ausgelastet zu sein. (Was mich für sie freut aber ein bischen doof ist wenn man sich mit basteln beschäftigen möchte).

Antwort Gefällt mir

Igor Wallossek

1

10,105 Kommentare 18,594 Likes

Die sind kurz vorm Kollaps, hatte mehrmals mit denen telefoniert. :D

Aber mal ganz sponatn:
Ich würde das Teil ebenfalls hier im Forum verlosen, falls wer Bedarf hat.
Ich Kühler, Ihr Porto und Abholer. Nicht, dass sich noch jemand dran gewöhnt. :D

Antwort 7 Likes

Justin-Dustin Elijah

Mitglied

11 Kommentare 2 Likes

Ok, das erklärt einiges 😁

Von mir aus kann er gern verlost werden.

Antwort Gefällt mir

L
Locomotion

Mitglied

39 Kommentare 5 Likes

Danke für den Test Igor. Wenn Du den Kühler verlost, kann dann die Graka nicht gleich dran bleiben? Ich schiele zwar momentan auf eine 3090, aber die Leistung einer 3080 würde ja meine 1080ti auch toppen.

Du hast diesmal gar nichts zum System geschrieben und wie die CPU gekühlt wurde. Hast Du denn die Gelegenheit genutzt auch die CPU mit Hardware von Aquacomputer ( cuplex kryos NEXT) zu kühlen? Ich hatte ja gehofft, das Du da mal eine Aussage zur Sinnhaftigkeit des variablen Kühlerboden machst!

Antwort 1 Like

e
eastcoast_pete

Urgestein

1,404 Kommentare 768 Likes

Wenn's jetzt noch die passenden Karten zum Kühlen irgendwo zu Normalpreisen gäbe, wäre es perfekt (:

Antwort Gefällt mir

C
Chiara

Veteran

260 Kommentare 54 Likes

Mindestens 2 Monate, teilweise sind es sogar 3-4 Monate.

Antwort 1 Like

m
martin28bln

Mitglied

12 Kommentare 19 Likes

@Igor Wallossek - Verlosung wäre super. Ich könnte in meinem build mal gegen den Alphacool tauschen und Werte vergleichen. Grüße

Edit:
Falls ich gewinnen sollte, würde ich einen von den Blöcken auch weitergeben. Welcher das wird, entscheidet dann der Vergleich. Insbesondere VRAM Temp würde mich echt interessieren, inwieweit der Kryo besser performt.

Antwort Gefällt mir

0
010Julius

Neuling

3 Kommentare 0 Likes

Hätte Lust meine Karte in den Kreislauf ein zu binden, war aber bis jetzt zu geizig

Antwort Gefällt mir

Danke für die Spende



Du fandest, der Beitrag war interessant und möchtest uns unterstützen? Klasse!

Hier erfährst Du, wie: Hier spenden.

Hier kannst Du per PayPal spenden.

About the author

Igor Wallossek

Editor-in-chief and name-giver of igor'sLAB as the content successor of Tom's Hardware Germany, whose license was returned in June 2019 in order to better meet the qualitative demands of web content and challenges of new media such as YouTube with its own channel.

Computer nerd since 1983, audio freak since 1979 and pretty much open to anything with a plug or battery for over 50 years.

Follow Igor:
YouTube Facebook Instagram Twitter

Werbung

Werbung