[REVIEW] EVGA GTX Hybrid Cooler for GTX 1080/1070

Suika · January 7, 2017

I wouldn't say I'm terribly good at reviews, mostly because I like to start, but I dislike finishing. The reason for my wanting to write this review was because, outside of Amazon reviews, there weren't a whole lot available. I wanted numbers, not just an opinion, but I couldn't find hard numbers. Unfortunately I wanted this product badly enough that I went ahead and just bought it, so I fully intend on leaving a more thorough review for the next user who might be considering the hybrid kit. So let's get to it.

To preface, let me tell you about my testing. I've got an EVGA GTX 1080 SC ACX 3.0, nice cooler but it prefers letting the chip run hot before cooling. The card has no overclock but is running at a 120% target power limit. Ambient temperatures are actually pretty low, my place has been warmed to 70F (21C), however my desktop is sitting right next to a window with an outside temperature of 9F (-13C). It is leaving an effect, because my 1080 is running just below 81C, whereas normally it is 81C. My system itself will remain configured the same through the testing, I have 2x140mm fans running as intake in a Phanteks P400 and a be quiet! Dark Rock 3 cooling my 5930k @4.4GHz (1.3v), finally with a single 120mm fan running as exhaust (the radiator will be taking its place).

Installation... wasn't that bad, it was only as difficult as any waterblock would be with the added frustration that came with the hybrid part of the cooler that sat on top. EVGA provided a TON of screws, some of which I couldn't find a use for, but for the most part I was able to reuse the screws that came with the stock cooler and even refit the backplate. I'd imagine this cooler is compatible with all reference design boards but I don't want to guarantee that. Managing cables for the fan in the shroud was a bit of an irritating feat, as there was no means of holding the cable still so you can put together the shroud properly.

Initially I decided I wanted to reuse my be quiet! 120mm fan for the radiator instead of the provided one, and had it mounted with tubes facing the top, not the bottom (EVGA recommends the tubing be on the bottom of the radiator). I don't know what I did wrong, but I was achieving the same temps as I was on the stock ACX 3.0 cooler, so I went ahead and cleaned off the thermal paste provided by EVGA and smothered the core with some good 'ole fashion MX-4, I also replaced the be quiet! with the stock fan EVGA provides, considering it looks like it's better at static pressure than the be quiet! fan is, and mounted the radiator as recommended by EVGA (hint: if mount with tubes on the top, you'll hear the water dripping in the radiator).

With installation all said and done, I was content enough with the temps to do some testing.

Stock ACX 3.0 Cooler

Core Clock: 1873MHz
Memory Clock: 1251MHz
Temperature: 77-79C throughout Unigine Heaven for over 10 minutes.

EVGA Hybrid for GTX 1080/1070 (reference)

Core Clock: 1936MHz (was 1949MHz for the first 5-7 minutes)
Memory Clock: 1251MHz
Temperature: 49-52C, I actually had to run the test for a lot longer because temperature gradually rose from 45C to 51C, and then started fluctuating around 52-49C.

(EDIT: I no longer have the card but I'll mention, I eventually got the card running at 2012MHz stable, so I ended up getting nearly 150MHz out of the card just by improving thermals significantly. GPU boost, huh.)

So just from improved temperatures (drastically improved IMO), I got a bit of a higher boost clock. I may do some overclocking later, but last I checked I was limited by power, not by temperature, but I don't know how that'll turn it.

Would I recommend this product? It depends. I wanted it because I felt like my performance was being restricted from the original ACX 3.0 cooler, and I was somewhat right, but it wasn't a significant amount (at least in the winter months). I feel like I got what I wanted personally, a quiet system with some impressively low temperatures, and would gladly recommend it. For a pure boost in performance, I'd recommend looking at overclocking and verifying temperature is your limit before you invest in it. After all, it is $119.

Ultimately I give it a 9/10. I wish installation instructions were a bit clearer, but anybody who's worked with watercoolers AT ALL before should be able to work their way through it. It took me a couple tries personally, but I've never water cooled a GPU before. All said and done, however, temperatures are so far impressive and without even touching Afterburner, I'm already seeing higher clocks.

Froody129 · January 9, 2017

You know you can manually turn the fans up on the old cooler and it still would've been inaudible while cooling it better?

Suika · January 9, 2017

2 hours ago, Froody129 said:

You know you can manually turn the fans up on the old cooler and it still would've been inaudible while cooling it better?

Yes, but even at 75% fan speeds, when they became audible, the gain in cooling was negligible compared to the Hybrid.

Calamarik · November 8, 2017

Sorry to revive this topic but I have an hybrid kit on my gtx 1080 and while the temperatures are amazing and the noise is quite low during load, the noise in idle is bad. The card use to be dead silent in idle but now that's the only thing audible in my system. I changed the terrible evga fan right away and it's a little bit better but the pump itself is pretty noisy.

Suika · November 8, 2017

6 hours ago, Calamarik said:

Sorry to revive this topic but I have an hybrid kit on my gtx 1080 and while the temperatures are amazing and the noise is quite low during load, the noise in idle is bad. The card use to be dead silent in idle but now that's the only thing audible in my system. I changed the terrible evga fan right away and it's a little bit better but the pump itself is pretty noisy.

I no longer have the card now but I don't remember having an issue with a noisy pump. I also removed the EVGA provided fan later on with a Noctua one.