Reference vs Non Reference water cooling

[PocketzDK]

Hi Guys

 

Ive been considering upgrading my GFX card To a 980.
And I was wondering, aside from any performance boost from the vendors side.

Are there any benifits to watercooling Reference vs. Non Reference cards.

 

Are non reference easier to cool or vice versa?

[thekeemo]

For water cooling just get the cheapest reference PCB card

[flibberdipper]

Reference cards tend to have more waterblocks available.

[Vacsol]

Non-reference cards rarely have water blocks available.

[PocketzDK]

I dont have an issue with waiting for the non reference designs.

I was just wondering if there would be any noticable difference between the two.

[nkd90]

no generally speaking there isn't a difference! some reference boards are shorter in length than non reference baords just due to the kind of cooling the company uses on the card eg. blower vs fans. And then of course the availability of waterblocks for cards like mentioned above

[Cooleb09]

Some reference boards may have better gpu binning processes and vrm, aka rog matrix, otherwise just go stock.

[Peopie]

Some of the nonreference cards may be higher binned chips, and may be able to be overclocked more. 

[Real_PhillBert]

Non-reference cards rarely have water blocks available.

EK makes blocks for a lot of different non reference cards.

 

I did a look at 780 blocks (since they have been around for long enough for a block development cycle) on Frozencpu and found blocks for Asus DCUII, Asus Matrix, Gigabyte, EVGA, HIS, Gainward and Palit. I admit that there is a much greater selection of blocks for reference designs, but there is not exactly a shortage of blocks for the custom PCB's either.

[Peopie]

@Real_PhillBert unfortuneately, only EK makes those non reference waterblocks. You don't really see many of the other brands (XSPC Aquacomputer etc..) making a large variety of non reference waterblocks. 

 

Oftentimes, if you go non reference, EK is the only brand you can go to. 

 

Which is better than nothing, because a waterblock does exist for you card

[Real_PhillBert]

@Real_PhillBert unfortuneately, only EK makes those non reference waterblocks. You don't really see many of the other brands (XSPC Aquacomputer etc..) making a large variety of non reference waterblocks. 

 

Oftentimes, if you go non reference, EK is the only brand you can go to. 

 

Which is better than nothing, because a waterblock does exist for you card

This is true, but I will stand by my statement. If you have a non reference GPU, odds are there is a water block out there for it.

 

It may not be your favorite manufacturer, but it is unlikely that there is no block support for a given GPU.