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Whats a reference card?

Sailordude9980
By Sailordude9980
in Graphics Cards
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Im going to be watercooling a graphics card for the first time. I have a MSI GTX 970, how do I know if my card is a reference card? I went on the EK website but the serial numbers didnt match up.b9a7013a1cdccecf2918426d3bbd704f.jpg

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Nothing something a google search and 30 seconds couldn't solve, but this is a reference card:

 

geforcegtx_titan_front_550.jpg

 

It's the ones that Nvidia make, not another company. Yours is MSI, so it's not a reference card.

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Im going to be watercooling a graphics card for the first time. I have a MSI GTX 970, how do I know if my card is a reference card? I went on the EK website but the serial numbers didnt match up.

 

A reference card is a GPU with the original, stock cooler on it. In the case of your 970, it will look something like this: 

 

14-132-038-01.jpg

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Im going to be watercooling a graphics card for the first time. I have a MSI GTX 970, how do I know if my card is a reference card? I went on the EK website but the serial numbers didnt match up.

A reference card is a GPU with a PCB (motherboard of the GPU) not manipulated from the original design from Nvidia.

MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, etc. often change the PCB a bit to fit for their coolers or whatever, but sometimes they keep it original (I think EVGA does that sometimes).

 

 

So a reference card is a card with the original non manipulated PCB and the blower style cooler and some cards have a different cooler, but still the reference PCB.

 

Either way, I believe the MSI GTX 970 is not a reference PCB and definitely not a reference cooler. The EKWB cooler probably wont fit on it (but you can contact them for some more info)

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Nothing something a google search and 30 seconds couldn't solve, but this is a reference card:

 

 

Or he could post here and get an answer ?

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your card is not a reference design, you need to find a waterblock that will fit your gpu.

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