Phanteks Glacier 1080 GPU Waterblock

[VSG]

The Glacier GTX 1080 waterblock is among Phanteks' first ever offerings to the DIY watercooling market. It features integrated RGB lighting, an acrylic top with aluminum side covers, nickel-plated copper cold plate, and a split central flow design scheme for low coolant flow restriction.

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[Mescalamba]

I think low flow restriction opens up quite a few possibilities for whole liquid cooling system. Might not be best on paper, but might be very good in real systems.

 

[VSG]

I think low flow restriction opens up quite a few possibilities for whole liquid cooling system. Might not be best on paper, but might be very good in real systems.

If you can design the whole loop with that in mind, definitely. That said, a lot of blocks now use the split flow inlet design. EK started it with their GTX 980 block, and of the 11 blocks tested 5 use it so far with a 6th company trying it out for upcoming blocks.

 

[iBruce]

Thank you for the amazing review as always. Although the information received into my neural network was mostly subliminal and spoke as an instant purchase of either an AquaComputer Kryographics OR EK nickel plexi block [from your charts] for an upcoming GTX 1080Ti EVGA KingPin Edition graphics card, that is if I move to water from that stunning 9 sensor asynchronous triple fan 2.5inch slot design with gorgeous white shroud EVGA is designing for its Elite Member Edition, Classified and KPE possibly not available until around or right after Computex time late May - early June. As good as the new arrivals from Phanteks may be, for my very first GPU moving "unterwasser", I'd feel much more comfortable going with the tried and true blocks from EK or AC, but that's just me.

Also, some new photos of my CaseLabs S8 bench two tone black and gunmetal Rampage 6 Extreme Skylake X Workstation build, with AMD Radeon Pro WX 4100 workstation graphics, here I guess, since I don't yet have a build log.

That's a Singularity Computers polished plexi D5 pump top and black CNC D5 cover absolutely stunning components from Daniel, he's such an amazing artist/engineer, also went with a Singularity polished plexi reservoir in small and yes, that's a Supermicro server grade Hot Swap Mobile Rack with 2.5 inch SSD SATA and SAS 12GB/s backplane, with 40mmx28mm Sanyo Denki fan, which is easily disabled for running only Samsung 850 EVO SSDs in an inaudible workstation.

Hope you will be reviewing some Singularity water parts very soon for TPU, would love to know your take and stance and just how well they compare and contrast with other makers. Glad things are going well for you VSG, keep up the great writing and work my friend, TPU and the community at large needs more great minds like yours.

 

[VSG]

Thanks Bruce, once my backlog is more manageable I will see if Hank can send one of those Singularity Computers res/pump top combo units.

 

[iBruce]

Thanks Bruce, once my backlog is more manageable I will see if Hank can send one of those Singularity Computers res/pump top combo units.

I went with separate D5 pump top and res, since hardmounting a D5 onto one of the pump top reservoir combos to a radiator didn't seem like a good way to isolate those D5 vibrations.

Pick out the combo unit you want and I'll ask PPCS to send it directly to you, for review and your personal build. Contact Duke as will I, and he can make the arrangements.

 

[erixx]

Just a little warning. Even with water, you can't up the voltage too much on a standard (FE) 1080Ti, or mod it much. There are already some incidents with melted caps, well, after hardmodding the power section of the pcb....

 

[VSG]

I went with separate D5 pump top and res, since hardmounting a D5 onto one of the pump top reservoir combos to a radiator didn't seem like a good way to isolate those D5 vibrations.

Pick out the combo unit you want and I'll ask PPCS to send it directly to you, for review and your personal build. Contact Duke as will I, and he can make the arrangements.

Oh it's not the cost, more the lack of time. I am currently abroad and I have a ton of packages waiting for me, along with some from March. I appreciate the offer though

Just a little warning. Even with water, you can't up the voltage too much on a standard (FE) 1080Ti, or mod it much. There are already some incidents with melted caps, well, after hardmodding the power section of the pcb....

Yeah, this is good to remind everyone. I am doing this more as a "State of GPU blocks 2017" than anything else. The cards that will benefit from overvoltage and watercooling can thus look at this and see which company to go with.

 

[Keullo-e]

Wow, the best-looking FC block I've seen this far!

 

[VSG]

Wow, the best-looking FC block I've seen this far!

I like it too. I wish I had a compatible case or motherboard to see how the RGB lighting is in real life, but their pictures make it look good.

 

[the54thvoid]

I loved the look of this GPU block but my impatience led me to get a Titan/1080ti Heatkiller IV block. Looking at the results, I dont feel so bad now as the Heatkiller block is mighty pretty too!

 

[VSG]

I loved the look of this GPU block but my impatience led me to get a Titan/1080ti Heatkiller IV block. Looking at the results, I dont feel so bad now as the Heatkiller block is mighty pretty too!

Definitely, and it's my overall top recommendation.

 

[bogami]

Worst result I have with 2Gh , 44 °C- 45 °C with MSI GTX1080 Sea Hawk EK and not all is the best dun . On Phanteks Glaciar 1080 it would be better with a larger Input channel for liquid above the slots and the slots in a V then U-shaped bottom little deeper to achieve more preformance. Methods of mass production are taking better preformens.

 

[erixx]

My EK just arrived but untill the weekend I can't mount it. Shame is that we have no specific 1080Ti club to talk about the smaller details...of cooling, oc, I guess it is easy to create one

 

[ypsylon]

Give me a break. For a block which weighs nearly 2kg its hopeless performer. Any block from EK, Bitspower or Watercool will do much better with 50%+ less weight. Blocks from Watercool are about 800g and Heatkillers are top of the line product (looking epic btw), EK in particular with full acrylic top is even lighter. Who the heck in right frame of mind will bolt 1.6kg of block to the card with no gain in performance over established competitors? Yeah RGB generation, this is for them. And most of that 1.6kgs is worthless shroud which does nothing.

Also its directional block which mean it has defined IN/OUT, it's not universal. You can't connect it with any kind of bridge for multi GPU and I'm talking mainly number crunching as SLI becomes more useless with each passing month.

 

[VSG]

Give me a break. For a block which weighs nearly 2kg its hopeless performer. Any block from EK, Bitspower or Watercool will do much better with 50%+ less weight. Blocks from Watercool are about 800g and Heatkillers are top of the line product (looking epic btw), EK in particular with full acrylic top is even lighter. Who the heck in right frame of mind will bolt 1.6kg of block to the card with no gain in performance over established competitors? Yeah RGB generation, this is for them. And most of that 1.6kgs is worthless shroud which does nothing.

Also its directional block which mean it has defined IN/OUT, it's not universal. You can't connect it with any kind of bridge for multi GPU and I'm talking mainly number crunching as SLI becomes more useless with each passing month.

Where are you seeing 2 Kg of mass for this? It has a reported mass of 1.06 Kg, and measured 1.054 Kg here. Remove the side covers and it will go even lower. This is not going to stress any of the new reinforced PCI-E slots either, and high end air coolers weigh similar.

As far as directionality goes, as I mentioned 5/11 blocks tested use it and for good effect including two of the three you mentioned. It's been over 2 years since EK introduced this, and I have not seen anyone complain about plumbing.

 

[system32svk]

I have preordered this Phanteks Glacier waterblock for my new 1080 Ti FE. Is there any way to control the RGB lighting, if my motherboard doesn't support it?

My specs:
i7 5820K watercooled
Asus Rampage V Extreme motherboard
Corsair 32GB DDR4 RAM
MSI GTX 1080 Ti FE
2x Samsung 256 GB SSD
EVGA 850 Gold PSU
Corsair 780T Case
Asus ROG Swift Monitor 1440p 144Hz

 

[VSG]

I have preordered this Phanteks Glacier waterblock for my new 1080 Ti FE. Is there any way to control the RGB lighting, if my motherboard doesn't support it?

My specs:
i7 5820K watercooled
Asus Rampage V Extreme motherboard
Corsair 32GB DDR4 RAM
MSI GTX 1080 Ti FE
2x Samsung 256 GB SSD
EVGA 850 Gold PSU
Corsair 780T Case
Asus ROG Swift Monitor 1440p 144Hz

Not directly, since you don't have a compatible Phanteks case either. I do not know anything about the Asus Aura control or if the LEDs are standard 5050 addressable ones, so I can't even tell if you can just make an Arduino style controller.