TitanX waterblock on a 1080Ti board?
Before we dive into this, let me clarify a statement EKWB made about its TITAN X water block and the then newly released 1080TI Founder’s Edition (referred as FE for the purpose of this article).
In a post released on the 1st of March 2017 , EKWB happily let the world know that the 1080TI (FE) would be compatible to their existing line of Titan X Pascal Water Blocks. And it is.. it is !!
BUT, there are two kinds of Titan X water blocks, the Titan X p. and the Titan X Pascal. See where the confusion can arise?
The EKWB Titan X p. is NOT COMPATIBLE with the new 1080TI (FE) unless you want to do what you should never do (and of course, I have done.. see pictures below)
As you can see, I like to take my (and that poor waterblock’s) destiny in my own hands!
In short, if you had an EKWB TitanX p waterblock lying around, and you wanted to try to slab it on a brand new, 1080TI (FE) board, you wouldn’t be far off.
Actually, you’d need to ‘modify’ your water block in only two locations.
One in the transistor bay. Luckily enough, plexiglass is an easy and forgivable element to work with. So take a Dremel with a sand-paper adapter and get these transistors to fit!
Step 2: When assembling the water block and the 1080TI (FE) logic board, you will see that one transistor stops the nickel plate from adhering to the other silicon elements, and stop the water block and board to meet up for a complete and secured seal.
No way around it.. we have to drill into that THICK nickel plate to give that transistor the head clearance it needs.
It won’t look too nice… but since this side of the block will be covered for (hopefully) the natural life of your GPU.. who cares?
I took that Dremel, and sand the hell out of this nickel plate… and after a couple white hair (seriously).. well.. it all fit together.
YEAHHHHHH… well… almost. Since this is a hack job (and proudly so), you’ll soon realize that not all the screws will meet its screw raiser on the board. But luckily enough, the one securing the nickel plate to the transistors, RAM and GPU do! Perfect fit.
After testing the hell of that thing, I came to the conclusion that.. yes.. it works and gives the performances you might expect from a water cooled GPU.
Additionally, I managed to make it look almost as if one was meant to meet the other.
Needless to say that you have to be a complete and utter M@RON to find yourself in my the position. And this article is aimed at whoever had the joy of joining this reclusive club.
Save yourself the hassle and get a proper 1080TI waterblock, whom ever it is from.
But again who listens to me??? WHO ???)
