EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW Video Card Review

EVGA GeForce GTX 470 HYDRO FTW

Water cooling has been a long time favorite way of keeping my CPU’s nice and cool. Back since the day I built my first Intel Q6600 I have had my system under water. Despite the risks involved, I do prefer it to traditional air coolers. Even after I sprung a leak in my reservoir, I just removed the reservoir and installed a T-line. Though, I have never had a graphics card that was water cooled. Primarily because I tend to change my graphics cards rather frequently, but also because I don’t usually overclock graphics cards unless I am benchmarking for some fun. Today, I may change my outlook of water cooled graphics cards because that is the focus of our article. Over the next several pages we are going to take an up close and personal look at the EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW! As I am sure you have gathered, the EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 that comes with a full coverage water block pre-installed.

Not only is the EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW ready to rock with the water block already in place, but it also comes with an overclock in place! Of course, being the FTW edition it’s going to be the highest overclock available from EVGA! The vanilla EVGA GeForce GTX 470 has a base clock speed of 607MHz and an effective memory speed of 3348MHz, which is solid performance in its own right. There is also a version or two of the GeForce GTX 470 available from EVGA that run at 625MHz/3402MHz for an added performance boost. Not bad, but our sample today will break away from the pack with an impressive clock speed of 650MHz which is a 7% boost in the core clock. The memory speeds have also been pushed further and are running at an effective 3402MHz.

If you are unfamiliar with EVGA, I have to ask one question: have you been living under a rock? If so, welcome to the party! Located in Brea, California, EVGA was started back in 1999 and has quickly become an enthusiast favorite. They also have some of the top performing products out there. This isn’t an opinion, this is based on fact. Just recently KINGPIN was able to take several EVGA products and take back the 3DMark Vantage world record with a score of over 70k! The setup included an EVGA Classified Super Record 2 SR-2 Motherboard, and four EVGA GeForce GTX 480’s! If EVGA products are good enough for a world record…I’m just sayin’. Speaking from personal experience, I have used around half a dozen or so EVGA motherboards and a handful of graphics cards in system builds for myself and others, and have always had a great experience with EVGA products.

The EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW is currently available for $459.99 with free shipping over at EVGA.com. The EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW is backed by a lifetime warranty and details on the warranty can be found here. The specifications for the EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW are plentiful and, of course, are listed below.

EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW Specifications

• 650 MHz GPU
• 448 CUDA Cores
• 400 MHz RAMDAC

EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW Memory Specifications

• 1280 MB, 320 bit
• 3402 MHz (effective)
• 136 GB/s Memory Bandwidth

EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW Interface

• PCI-E 2.0 16x
• DVI-I, DVI-I, Mini-HDMI
• SLI Capable

EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW Resolution & Refresh

• 240Hz Max Refresh Rate
• 2048×1536 Max Analog
• 2560×1600 Max Digital

The EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW requires 550Watt power supply and a pair of 6pin PCIe plugs and 38 Amps on the 12 Volt rail in order for this beast to run. Enough specifications already, let’s take a look at the packaging and bundle for the EVGA GeForce GTX 470 Hydro Copper FTW and, of course, the card itself before we get to some testing.