KylSp

Vic20 with tape drive

Get the 170, the 270 is just too big to be useful in most cases.

Since you're in the us, Sidewinders, frozencpu or performancepcs are the only real options. 

Once you go IPS, you realize just how terrible TN looked.

Countdown till we see a 'my crappy no-name 1000w power supply I bought for $30 just killed my video cards!' post?

Looks good, props for not drinking the koolaid. That pump is a workhorse, I'd never take a DDC over a D5 if you have the option.

<3 IPMI

See the title of that thread? The anodizing was done to cut costs as it's not as cheap to implement a copper channel/pipe with threaded ports as it was with affixed barbs like the M5F.
 
Anodizing, if done with zero imperfections will function as they're stating. Anodizing done by a mass manufacturing process, with QC levels (costs) that would not realistically allow for zero surface imperfections, won't be. At the end of the day it's up to you, but functionally the board will not perform any better with the crosschill in use. A 10-15° drop in VRM temperatures will not allow for any better over-clocking then you'll get without it, the boards are entirely CPU limited thanks to Haswell. Getting a "Mad OC" is all about the CPU lotto this generation more then ever. 
 
ASUS PR is trying to put a stamp on something that is their own creation. Swiftech had a similar problem with plating alu tops for their GTX block, which on most of their samples worked completely fine. As with everything in the real world, QC isn't perfect and all it takes is one spec, scratch, etc. As well, those plated bronze fittings you screw into this block will react the same way copper will if they thread and damage that anodized surface.
 
This isn't some whacky theory, it's basic science and a history of this genre. Use it if you want, if you do I would advise using a coolant or mix with glycol and an inhibitor to limit corrosion.

Yes, the VRM channel is anodized alu, which you can bet won't stop galvanic corrosion at this price point (the anodizing has to be completely perfect, which it won't be on a consumer product).
 
Do not use the VRM block in your loop unless you're running a corrosion inhibitor, and in fact, just don't bother using it at all. The board will show zero performance differences with it running air.

You probably have air trapped in the block.

It will work, you just won't get the ecc support.

It doesn't even have to be a visible scratch, any imperfection in the anodizing will ruin any corrosion protection they're claiming. Given that they went the lower cost route in the first place by just anodizing it instead of running a copper pipe through it like the M5F, I am not going to hesitate to say the interior of that VRM cooling assembly was not checked over with a microscope before passing QA.
 
ASUS was very reluctant to say what was going on with that cooling assembly till it slipped in the rog forums, then it was nothing but PR spin after that from Raja at support.

Get a motherboard with IPMI, you'll thank me later.
 
And Kingston ECC is as noted above what you want to go for: KVR16E11/8 is the common 8GB sku.

All air cooling is pretty much shit compared to a full-cover block which will easily cut the GPU temperatures in half. That's pretty much the only reason why I got into watercooling in the first place, that old 4870 blower was god awful to listen to.

At best it will achieve glide-level adoption, which on one hand is good as it may push MS to actually improve and not version lock directx, but it creates market divides between camps which is not healthy for the consumer. At worst it flops and EA wasted a few months of development time adapting Frostbite3 for mantle. 

I would buy all of my cards bare PCB if that was actually an option. The cost of the cooler on the reference titan / 690 / 780's is anything but cheap, and having assembled a few systems with those cards I can say that material wise it absolutely increased the cards manufacturing price. 
 
It all depends on what segment of the market you are in for what product points you care about. People went nuts about the 480's with reference coolers, but on water they were a completely different story. I hope the same thing applies to the 290x, that when not restrained by the relative mediocrity of modern video card air cooling deltas, we'll see what it can really do. That doesn't abolish what the out of the box performance characteristics are, but again, not everyone will be running them stock.
 
If you aren't going water, wait for the non-reference models.
 
 
** Some of you can't understand the concept of an enthusiast, that if someone is spending $600 on a card, another $100 for a waterblock to integrate into an existing loop probably doesn't matter at the end of the day. This is a major hobby for some people, and just because you scoff at what a water cooling system costs doesn't make that opinion meaningless.

Even with a water block, that extra wattage heat output doesn't magically disappear. If a GPU is running hotter by default, watercooling is just more efficient at removing it from the GPU die and pushing it into the ambient air.
 
That said, anyone whining about the heat or fan noise, if you're spending realistically $600+ on a video card you're probably going to be using a non-reference card with a better cooling system, or watercooling it anyway.
 
It's a great release for the market and owners on both sides. The only people sour about this should be those that just paid full price for 780's or bought a titan recently.

Even with a water block, that extra wattage heat output doesn't magically disappear. If a GPU is running hotter by default, watercooling is just more efficient at removing it from the GPU die and pushing it into the ambient air.
 
That said, anyone whining about the heat or fan noise, if you're spending realistically $600+ on a video card you're probably going to be using a non-reference card with a better cooling system, or watercooling it anyway.
 
It's a great release for the market and owners on both sides. The only people sour about this should be those that just paid full price for 780's or bought a titan recently.

Even with a water block, that extra wattage heat output doesn't magically disappear. If a GPU is running hotter by default, watercooling is just more efficient at removing it from the GPU die and pushing it into the ambient air.
 
That said, anyone whining about the heat or fan noise, if you're spending realistically $600+ on a video card you're probably going to be using a non-reference card with a better cooling system, or watercooling it anyway.
 
It's a great release for the market and owners on both sides. The only people sour about this should be those that just paid full price for 780's or bought a titan recently.

So he's basically a Canucks fan?

So he's basically a Canucks fan?

As a CAN resident, if I was going with an AMD card it would be MSI. They're the only vendor with Canadian RMA support, the alternatives for VGA are all cross-border, which ramps up shipping costs and almost always ends up with border hassles on the return.

They ship from HongKong, so it would be inter-Asia shipping for you.
 

Old primochill tubing is better then the recent crop of LRT, they probably changed OEM suppliers in the last couple of years. Tygon has always been the tops, but it's availability for certain areas has never been as good, and it can be much more expensive. The only real perk of LRT in the first place was it's low plasticizer leaching qualities compared to the other crap that was around in the early days (Feser/EK), but again, their current tubing is not as good as previous years.