Corsair Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti Liquid Cooled Video Card @ [H]

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Corsair Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti Liquid Cooled Video Card

We’ve got an exciting new video card for you today, the Corsair Hydro GFX GTX 1080 Ti Liquid Cooled Graphics Card with a Corsair Hydro Series AIO liquid cooling package on board. We find out how well this video card performs, how cool it runs, and how well it will overclock at 4K and 1440p.
 
Wow, nice write up. This would be a must buy for me if I didn't already take the plunge. Very cool video card with great performance. What more could you ask for?
 
Definitely an impressive card, though it seems odd that they have you plug the radiator fan onto the motherboard without offering a way to connect it to the video card, allowing the fan's speed to be dictated specifically by the gpu temp.
 
dewbak75 said:
Definitely an impressive card, though it seems odd that they have you plug the radiator fan onto the motherboard without offering a way to connect it to the video card, allowing the fan's speed to be dictated specifically by the gpu temp.
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With a decent mobo you can choose if the fan speed is dictated by the CPU, GPU or MB temperature. I don't think that is a problem with modern boards.
 
Great write-up as always [H]. I'm already set this time around with a 1080, but I'm excited to see what Corsair brings to the table next gen, I'd love to go the AIO route this next time around.
 
Kyle,

Right now I have an EVGA 980ti that I'm happy with in terms of performance and sound levels at idle (0rpm) and mild load (30% fan speed)

Once it gets to about 50% fan speed it starts to get loud and games like Doom 2016 and GTA V really like to keep it above 80% where it is LOUD.

Going to this, could I expect a significant reduction in sound at high intensity gaming? It's a little too hard to interpret from the info provided, and for $800 I'd like to be very certain.
 
I paid $709 for a two fan EVGA 1080Ti SC Black - amazing price for this MSI/Corsair collaboration for the superior cooling and bottom line performance. This to me is a very good buy for a top notch card! Also like the exciting write up as well, full of enthusiasm, which I am sure will help make more enthusiasts.
 
So like just about every other aftermarket 1080ti, negligible gains in max clock or performance compared to the max OC performance of a reference card, roughly the same overall power consumption, but a little quieter due to the waterblock. At least one manufacturer really needs to open up the BIOS to test the limits of the silicon and it won't be Nvidia itself because AMD has nothing to compete with and won't till Navi (in 2019 now?) at a minimum.
 
ZeqOBpf6 said:
Kyle,

Right now I have an EVGA 980ti that I'm happy with in terms of performance and sound levels at idle (0rpm) and mild load (30% fan speed)

Once it gets to about 50% fan speed it starts to get loud and games like Doom 2016 and GTA V really like to keep it above 80% where it is LOUD.

Going to this, could I expect a significant reduction in sound at high intensity gaming? It's a little too hard to interpret from the info provided, and for $800 I'd like to be very certain.
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I say go for it.
 
Good read. I went on a little tangent when the article linked 15 years worth of MSI reviews on Hardocp and found myself going down a rabbit hole that had me reading the 5900xt review Brent wrote in 2004.
 
Thought Noctua fans were expensive until I saw the price of the Corsair fans at the store.
 
noko said:
I paid $709 for a two fan EVGA 1080Ti SC Black - amazing price for this MSI/Corsair collaboration for the superior cooling and bottom line performance. This to me is a very good buy for a top notch card! Also like the exciting write up as well, full of enthusiasm, which I am sure will help make more enthusiasts.
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At US$799, this is a steal. Very hard to argue against at this level of performance unless it simply wouldn't fit, given the guaranteed performance above stock while keeping quiet.
 
Thorough and awesome write up as always. Thanks Kyle! I almost missed this one even though its at the top of the page, there have been so many different, varied articles lately on [H] I've had a tough time reading them all!

I'm still not ready to cross the fence for liquid yet. The only thing it could really get me is a more silent rig and currently my gaming profile isn't that loud. Using techniques I learned from you my Asus Strix 1080ti holds 2000/55c , 2012/50c, or 2025/under 50c at full load. Under load I never see it go below 2000mhz unless the game simply doesn't trigger the boost. I've got the Vram at 11.67Ghz. Really happy with it. The settings I apply thru Afterburner are: +110% power, +60 core, +350 vram, and 70% fan. It actually stays cooler than the stock settings.

I am happy that it gets your approval for a quality build though. That's a big concern for me with liquid. Just hoping at some point we might see some hitting 2100 or 2200 but I'm probably expecting too much. I truly feel at that point they'd really be close or equal to what my 1080SLI's are doing in 4k w/o all the fuss of SLI.
 
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Nice article.
Looks like a nice product..............and you can actually buy it right now.....there hasn't been a MSRP GTX 1080 Ti for sale anywhere for over 2 months now......and only 100 bucks more than a reference GPU, not some jacked up price for a FE or a simple heatsink modification, cudos to Corsair.

I always said Corsair should sell video cards. I'd buy two if I didn't already have them.
 
Interesting review. I wonder how this stacks up against something like the Gigabyte Waterforce card with the monoblock + AIO in terms of overall noise/temps/performance


I guess that the Gigabyte is $80 more, but has 4 years of warranty vs 2 at Corsair. EVGA offers 3 years of warranty which seems to be more in line with how long I keep my cards.
 
Interesting. That is the same max stable core overclock and temps I get on my Titan X with the EVGA Hybrid kit on it. My memory won't go past 10.6 GT/s without getting artifacts on screen, though.
 
Using a FreeSync/GSync monitor in reviews will ultimately mask any small differences in performance between products thus negating the usefulness of the reviews.
 
Corsair sells adapters for several GPUs to adapt their AIO coolers to but they do not have one for the 1080. I was hoping they were working on creating an adapter but I think this confirms that they will not be making one in lieu of trying to get people to purchase their branded 1080.
Not that Im unhappy with my MSI 1080, I was just hoping to remove the fans for an AIO cooler to make my rig even more quiet. Currently all my fans are 140mm so the GPU fans are noticeable with their higher pitch fan noise.
 
BitMaster said:
With a decent mobo you can choose if the fan speed is dictated by the CPU, GPU or MB temperature. I don't think that is a problem with modern boards.
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I haven't seen boards that can read the GPU temp, except Asus boards that can read it from Asus video cards.
 
Based on this review and being long overdue for a video card upgrade, I went ahead and bought one last week. Unfortunately I've got a really irritating noise coming from the fan on the card itself -- kind of a squeaking noise that almost sounds like the fan periodically rubbing up against something. I'm fairly certain that it's not actually making contact with anything, as with the power off I can freely rotate the fan with no contact against the fan duct edges. Has anybody else experienced this, and any idea what might fix it?
 
Algrim said:
That sounds like coil whine to me...
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Yeah the more I play with the fan with power off, the more clearly it sounds like a ball bearing that simply needs some oil. In 20 years of gaming I’ve never had a card with coil whine. Is this something that ever just kind of works itself out and goes away?
 
Hey, just curious for those who bought the card. Are you letting the main board control the rad fan via GPU temp?

I have a sabertooth z87, h110, with the rad fans plugged into the main board, and the fans would all ramp up with CPU temperature. This behaviour is meh because it should really be done via the water temp. I just upgraded to a h115i and the fans are much more stable now. The case fans still go crazy with CPU temp. I think I am going to get a corsair command link. I will then control all case fans via the h115i water temperature and control the radiator fan for the GPU with an additional 120mm intake fan based on GPU temp. Thoughts? This should keep airflow balanced based on what part of the system is demanding airflow.
 
Newegg had the MSI Seahawk 1080Ti for US$709, and I jumped on that. I've done a function check, and it's easily running >1900MHz solid on the core just with the power target set to 120% under gaming (BF4, ME:A so far).

This is with the rad fan plugged into the fan header by the power and reset pin cluster.
 
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This is +100 GPU for 2,062MHz, +550 VRAM for 12,110MHz, with CPU at 4.5GHz all core, for a lazy overclock:

upload_2017-11-6_3-46-42.png
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Newegg had the MSI Seahawk 1080Ti for US$709, and I jumped on that. I've done a function check, and it's easily running >1900MHz solid on the core just with the power target set to 120% under gaming (BF4, ME:A so far).

This is with the rad fan plugged into the fan header by the power and reset pin cluster.
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Are there any functional differences between the Corsair version of this card and the equivalent MSI Sea Hawk version, aside from the fan used on the radiator?
 
dewbak75 said:
Are there any functional differences between the Corsair version of this card and the equivalent MSI Sea Hawk version, aside from the fan used on the radiator?
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Sorry that I missed your question: the MSI and EVGA versions are to my knowledge both just rebrands of the Corsair product. As in, they're all the same.
 
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