EVGA GTX 580 FTW Hydro Copper 2 Liquid Cooled Video Card Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,677 words · ~8 min read
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want to see something funny I bet if I go like this you can see crazy Russian
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so he wanted me to say that this is085
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gigz which it is this is the EVGA GTX
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580 FTW Hydro copper 2 so it is for the win
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which means that it is an evga's highest tier of
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overclocked Highly bined chips okay so
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it's a For the Win It Is hydro which means that it uses liquid cooling it is
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copper which should be fairly self-explanatory and it is
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two so it must be the second one so the first thing we see on the front of the
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box is that EVGA is the number one seller of NVIDIA based products in the
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US they're very proud of that and so they should be we have 3D Vision
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surround support fys X direct 11 SLI Cuda a bunch of stuff that's not on here
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um even three-way and four-way SLI is
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supported by this particular card let's see what evj has to say for themselves
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on the back it does support their Precision Tool for overclocking as well
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as their free OC Scanner so this Precision in particular is a very very
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useful little uh little feature we have full support for 3D Vision including 3D
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Vision surround okay so I did mention that before I didn't think I did but
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actually I had already all right let's open this up and oh we've got some seals
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to break here that is something that I
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do like to do oh hold on just got that running in the
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background there okay let's break the seal and have a look at this very fast
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very expensive graphics card so it comes
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in a sleeve this is more of a traditional older style video card
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box all right then it comes in a box
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which will contain nothing there maybe this was
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here maybe this was also here maybe these are supposed to be here see let's
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try it like this and see if that works better see what what if I opened it like
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that okay that doesn't really maybe that's why they didn't put them in there
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all right hose clamps and Barbs are provided to properly position the barbs
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and stop fittings follow the diagram below okay I'll explain that in a
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minute all right we got one of those posters I've shown you guys this a
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number of times but I guess uh I'll show
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you again oh no wait oh no it's the same old one never mind the skull there you
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go okay so let's just close Mr skull
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back up here and uh there we are okay
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the next thing we find inside is a bunch of useless stuff basically that's how to
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install a graphics card in a PCIe slot and a driver disc which you shouldn't
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use you should download the latest off NVIDIA.com next we have ouri mini HDMI
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to HDMI cable this is great because it means that if you plug in a fullsize
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HDMI cable you will not um interfere
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with the DVI slot that is next over we have a dual six pin PCIe to 8 Pin PCIe
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adapter and a dual Molex to six pin PCIe
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adapter just in case your power supply does not have native support for this
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card we've got a DVI to VGA adapter seriously you should not be using that
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VGA out on a card of this caliber just
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buy yourself a new monitor already okay next we have
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barbs all right so for those of you who aren't familiar with water cooling we
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got a few different things here we have two 1/2 in stubby fittings Barb fittings
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okay so what makes them stubby is that they're shorter than a traditional
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longer Barb okay what makes them/ inch is the uh outer diameter of the flange
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here on the Barb and they got over rings in here to make sure that they don't
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leak these are G1 quarter threaded so they will be compatible with this and
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most other blocks on the market you've also got 38 barbs so these are for if
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you are running 38 tubing inside your water cooling loop I actually use 38
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tubing so these are the ones that I would use in theory but I would probably
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upgrade them to compressions instead of barbs these are stop fittings so stop
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fittings go everywhere where you don't put a Barb so let's explain that diagram
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real quick here okay so you can either put them in
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this way so you see the stop fittings there so the water flows in around the
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loop blah blah blah blah blah and then comes out here or you can go this way so
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it's in from the top and then go comes out this way so basically the stop
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fittings have to always go opposite wherever you put a Barb so that it
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doesn't just flow straight through without passing through the block to
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cool the GPU and the RAM and everything because this is a full cover
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block ways about oh wow that's heavy
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they weren't kidding when they said it was made of copper so full cover blocks cool not
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only the GPU itself which used to be how we did video card water cooling but also
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the memory power delivery all of that
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good stuff full cover blocks are pretty much the
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shizel I'm a big fan of full cover blocks and I do run one in my own system
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at home I actually did a video where I showed you guys how to install a full
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cover block it's a bit of a process so there is definitely something to be said
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for buying a card like this from EVGA
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which is bin higher than most GTX 580s
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and also comes equipped with a water
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block right out of the box which means you don't have to install it you don't
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have to worry about any complications with your warranty from installing it
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not to say EVGA won't warranty you if you install a different card but you
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know if you break it and it's your own fault they certainly won't be able to help you right so uh here we go we've
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got a nickel plated copper base with more plastic on it there we
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are this is made by swifttech you can see here powered by swifttech it has a
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delin top now delin has the advantage of being more durable than acrylic so
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acrylic and delin are the two main materials that you see used for the tops
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of blocks it is less liable to crack
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where you insert the Barb so here I'm going to throw a 38 inch Barb in there
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okay um oh one of other things I've note
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about this card is it is single slot check that out so there's your mini HDMI
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there's your DVI there's your DVI and there's your custom single slot uh PCI
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bracket so that is a pretty awesome thing which means you could in theory I
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mean if you were doing like a folding rig install as many as what like what's
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the highest number six would be like a classified sr2 6 PCIe 16x slots seven
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seven ASUS WS Evolution okay you can install a whole lot of these in one
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system at time should you so desire although you'd have to get some custom
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fittings these ones wouldn't quite work if you were putting cards right next to
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each other uh let's have a look at the back so it does include evga's back
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plate for the GTX 580 this is not a custom PCB 580 it's just a very highly
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bended one that has a custom cooler and a custom back plate on it so you can see
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we've got little holes for ventilation here and it's also making contact
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probably with some of the key components on the back that do need to be cooled or
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maybe it's just for looks even making cont with
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anything maybe it this just for looks I actually don't know interesting okay
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we've got two SLI fingers with support for two-way three-way and four-way
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SLI on the bottom we find our standard PCIe 16x slot interface and moving over
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back to the front we can just kind of look at the card some more cuz it's a
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very very slick slim sexy looking card
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looks great
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that's pretty much all there is to it it's like awesome oh yeah 8 Pin and six
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pin PCIe power connectors are needed for this particular board and uh just so you
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guys know you will need water cooling you will need a water cooling setup in
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order to run this card you can't just buy this if you don't already have
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liquid cooling so you're going to want a pump a radiator a reservoir and some
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fans in order to make this
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function I think that's pretty much it thank you for check out my unboxing of
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the GTX 580 FTW hydrocopper 2 don't
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forget to subscribe to Linus Tech tips for more unboxings reviews and other
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computer videos and also when you are fastening your barbs don't overdo it
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they should be kind of once it starts to get snug turn it maybe another quarter
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to half of a turn and that is pretty much it you don't want to rip the threads out just my little water cooling
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tip for you guys for the day 85 gz