Aqua Computer aquagraFX Water Block for GeForce GTX 480 Video Cards

aquagraFX GPU Water Block from Aqua Computer

A couple months ago we got to look at a GeForce GTX 480 GPU water block from Danger Den. Today we are looking at another option for taming the heat from the mighty nVidia GeForce GTX480 video card. This one comes to us from Aqua Computer. Aqua Computer is based in Germany and makes a wide range of water cooling accessories from CPU blocks and GPU blocks to system monitoring tools.

The GPU block we are looking at today is from Aqua Computer’s aquagraFX series of water blocks. It is a full cover block that is CNC milled from a solid block of copper. The top and backing plates are made from stainless steel. This not only looks nice, but steel is lighter than copper and the inlet ports are also made from Delrin plastic, which is even lighter yet. Overall the aquagraFX water block weighs in at 850g; that is 350g lighter than the 1.2kg Danger Den full copper block we recently looked at. The lighter weight will mean less stress on the card and a lesser chance of snapping something that shouldn’t, but can it keep the GF100 ‘ Fermi’ core as cool?

The aquagraFX for the nVidia GeForce GTX 480 comes in two versions: a plain copper for 89.90EUR and nickel plated copper for 99.99EUR. Now, you might be wondering why I listed the price in Euros. Well, Aqua Computer, at the moment, does not have a distributor in the US. You can order it from their web store, but paying the shipping to get it across the pond is almost half the price of the block. UK readers are in a similar boat, so to speak, going the other way around with a Danger Den block.

Packaging

The card comes packed in a plain white box.

Inside the block is wrapped in bubble wrap.

A lot of bubble wrap.

The block comes with all the hardware needed to mount the water block to your video card. It even includes a pair of fittings to block off the SLI ports for those who are running single cards.