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iVirtua Community (UK) has obtained some exclusive photos of the final designs of MSI's new HydroGen waterblock that will be offered as a limited edition on some of its next generation Intel X48 boards.
The block is made in Germany as an all copper design where the watertravels all the way from one end the other. This is completely unlikeany previous design that we've seen before which has just featuredsimply a single in-out from a single block on a single chipset or powerregulation components by the CPU. This means that you can run a systemcompletely passively as there's no need for some airflow over theheatpipes like with other boards and the amount of flow reducing 90degree turns is kept to an absolute minimum.
What's more, there are no barbs included, just simplethreaded sockets. This means watercooling enthusiasts can for once useexactly the same barb size as the rest of their system, keeping a moreoptimal water flow.
It looks like finally a motherboard company has listened toenthusiasts' actual needs, however there's no word on the warrantysituation, or how it performs without being plugged into a water supply- the pipes are empty after all.
MSI claims up to 20 percent more power efficiency and up to six timeslonger life because of the continually reduced component temperature.We expect this also means there should be some better potentialoverclocking too - providing the BIOS (and new X48 chipset) is up to it.
A tentative and early price of €379 may put a lot of people off, but ifyou're serious about it consider how much it costs for an entirewatercooling kit in addition to finding a non-heatpiped board to fitit. From the pictures below, the awesome professional CNC milled piecemight say enough to watercoolers to spend the money. Even if you're nota watercooler, we've discovered that MSI is working on its own kit towork in conjunction with it, but is remaining extremely tight lipped asto how this is progressing.
It's essentially no different than the BFG Tech 8800 GTX waterblock we looked at last year, or the Asus Maximus boards, so are you sold or do you think companies should leave watercooling to the niche high end? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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