ASUS left us unsupervised with their water cooled graphics card...#Helpful Post

ur CES 2019 coverage is brought to you

by the D brand grip super grippy case

and D brand's prism screen protectors

we're here in the asus rog components

suite which also clearly is not fully

set up yet but we found some really cool

stuff in here so they've got this demo

system that's not running yet oh that's

heavy I'm not gonna mess with that too

much but it's clearly water-cooled it's

clearly got a motherboard that we have

never seen in person before let's just

open it up look at that so this is their

Dominus Xtreme I'll show you that in a

little bit more detail later and they've

got the first ever water-cooled video

card that doesn't have like an external

radiator with tubing to it that you got

to like put over here anyway

that's that system is not actually

running yet but that doesn't matter

because I've got the key components over

here so this I was actually thinking of

doing a dedicated video called Intel

your desperation is showing or something

like that this is gonna run their

upcoming 28 core overclockable CPU but

the reason we didn't end up doing a

dedicated video even though this thing

is nuts look at this for eight pin CPU

power connectors three PCI Express power

connectors and two 24 pin connectors

look the entire top of the board is just

vrm this entire thing is just power

delivery the reason we didn't end up

doing it video is because we don't

really know anything about it 6 channel

memory yeah just like the Xeon

Platinum's

four PCI Express slots we don't know

pricing of the board we don't know

pricing of the CPU we don't know what

realistic overclocking results are Intel

showed 5 gigahertz but that was on like

very very chilled liquid so it just is

kind of like it's like a showpiece right

now it's all it really is but now I'm

not going to help Asus with too much of

their booth set up here but I did find

this power brick that is trailing out

the back of this thing that wasn't

plugged in that seems to fire up the

fans on the card and there's a USB cable

back here

I'm gonna go ahead and plug into my hey

my portable power battery bank Hey look

at that see I'm helping I am helping I

mean I'm not gonna leave my battery bank

here but that's not the point also I'm

gonna unplug this because guess what I

got I got no kids so we're gonna have a

look at what exactly a water-cooled

graphics card like this is oh man

hopefully this even like can be pulled

off because I've sort of committed to it

now not a lot fine guys chill not gonna

break it to you look if they didn't want

a bull running around in their china

shop they shouldn't have had him on the

guest list okay so the crazy thing about

this is that from the front from the

bottom from the back from the side

everything about it looks fairly normal

to the uninitiated and you know even to

the fairly initiated I would say so I

think this shiny piece here has to come

off yeah okay I thought there might be a

screw under there I no longer believe

that there's a screw under there anyway

one hint as to what we're about to see

though is this so that is like more of a

like a water block style cold plate down

there and then it appears as though

they're using the same kind of pump and

water block combo unit that we've seen

in aio coolers and then if we look

closely instead of just heat pipes

running to aluminum fins we've got a

radiator here it's just bolted to the

front of the card now I want to get a

better look at it I'm having a really

hard time figuring out where the

additional screws are

you know what I'm doubling down I'm

doubling down on my the screws are under

here theory more than one of these here

right yep I don't know if they have

another one to put back on their little

demo stand though I mean this adhesive

seemed to go back on pretty well I just

want to see the radiator okay so there

were three screws on the bottom we got

those up you haven't taken it apart so

so you're okay

so it seems now I'm good okay so it

seems like there's something holding it

over here something along here I just

want to be able to show the radiator and

the block like kind of show how it goes

together this adhesive I've had it up

and down once already it seems to be

holding together pretty well in case

you're curious you know what I think I

might know what's going on here I think

I might not have the right screwdriver

for this there's three screws that are

just barely accessible if you get back

here yeah and this is all I have and I

can't get to them yeah I even thought

about grabbing my like more traditional

jeweler screwdrivers but they look so

much like a weapon I didn't want to put

them in my luggage I am going through

the really annoyed yeah so I can put

this plate back on

that sucks

whoa hold on it's okay no no I was just

putting the card back together I had

given up I found the screws so there

they're back there but I left my my like

traditional jeweler's screwdrivers at

home but then this was sitting down here

and it was like that kind of looks like

a toolkit but why does it have this on

it apparently to make sure that no one

will open it okay so let's try this this

is gonna be really really hard to put

back together I legitimately don't know

if I'm going to be able to put these

screws back in and but they're already

out now so since the ship has sailed

you might as well just proceed like if

you're already going to hell you know

why stop I think I got it there we go

those three screws released this nice

okay where's my screwdriver get off

there off she goes there it is

so that is how they're doing it and I'm

glad that I got this popped off because

there's already at least one thing that

I got wrong here so I was telling you

guys that it looked like they had used a

pump CPU block combo here but what

they've actually done is they've used

this extremely compact pump right here

so this allows a soos to avoid any

issues with the ASA Tech patent that

prevents third parties from using

unlicensed block pump combo units and it

still managed

is to be small enough to install

directly on top of a graphics card now

in terms of the cooling capacity here

crazily enough they actually haven't

compromised much there so as far as I

can tell this plate right here is just a

protective piece so naturally we'll be

removing it no it looks like I'm not

gonna be able to get that off that

easily so this is a protective piece for

the tubing

there's no reservoir so just like a

typical closed-loop cooler

it's just prefilled at the factory and

then it maybe you can help me with this

so we've got the inlet on the pump then

we've got the outlet right here going to

the GPU block no power comes off the

board right here this is a super small

pump by the way then so we've got our

cold plate down there which presumably

is covering both the GPU and the HBM

memory modules is that correct I mean I

can't imagine that they didn't do that I

don't see anything else down here yeah

it's hard to it's hard to go any further

than this unfortunately you guys we've

got DRM over here which is handled just

with downdraft cooling from the fans up

here and then this is weird

see this here so unlike a normal

radiator there's kind of a the end tank

is in the middle and I don't know how

the flow path works but out from the GPU

block comes in the underside right here

on a normal radiator it goes in the one

side on the end tank down then you have

a smaller end tank on the other end it

goes over and then through these thin

tubes right here but it's coming right

up here and then it's coming out here so

I can only imagine that they've done

some kind of routing you know what I

think I know what they did I think this

is how it works so it goes in the bottom

here and then there's a divider here it

goes it fills this tank

goes over here through the skinny end

tank and then out here then it's a

parallel flow path I think it goes in

here down this side of this one through

this skinny end tank and then up here

and then the cooled water comes together

back through the pump over to the GPU

again now I don't have verification of

this but I can't imagine that it would

work any other way because it couldn't

just go straight from here to here you

wouldn't get any cooling out of it

that is something I did not expect to

see here so while I put this back

together let's talk about what kind of

performance you could expect from a 2080

ti that is water-cooled well a lot but

maybe not quite as much as you'd hope

because of the way that NVIDIA has

restricted their partners abilities to

over volt their GPUs you're probably

only looking at a couple percent faster

than a well air-cooled 2080 ti now with

that said what a sues claims is that

like other liquid cooled graphics cards

which have existed in the past but with

a separate radiator this one will run

much cooler and that'll mean that the

card will be able to maintain its

maximum power state more consistently

and more stable E and another thing to

consider is that while many bench

markers run their tests in a room

temperature room your room might not be

that temperature so if you're from

somewhere that's particularly hot or you

don't have air conditioning or whatever

the case may be then something like this

might be necessary in order to get the

maximum performance out of your card

this was stressful and there we go the

card is reassembled all that remains is

to oh wow the box that was being used as

a stand for this one's pretty beat up

hopefully to have another plan for that

all that remains is to see if their demo

still works yeah

do the phones still spin hey and we're

done so thanks to my sous for being

really good sports about all of this

and thanks to you guys for watching and

thanks to D Bren for sponsoring us here

at CES 2019 there dbrand grip cases

which I will be doing plenty of drop

tests with our super grippy their impact

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same precision you'd expect from D brand

with nice accurate cutouts for your

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you might have like say for example a

headphone jack or stylus did I just

break my stylus the stylus popped out is

Oh nope nevermind still good haha that's

good and they've got super clicky

buttons but the really new thing is

their prism screen protectors when they

told me the demo I'd be doing with this

thing I thought they were freaking nuts

not only did they have me hammer a nail

into a piece of wood using the screen of

a phone only to have it not damaged they

had me hit the front of the screen with

the hammer to demonstrate just how

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