Corsair Nautilus SLI Water Blocks

Introduction:

When water cooling started really becoming a mainstream and feasibly marketable product, many a company saw that it could produce their own variations that are more compatible and often much better than the common product. The consumers are typically concerned about two main things when it comes to computers. How does it perform? And how does it look?

Corsair has been a prominent figure in the memory module sector for years and has become a staple of sorts among the computer market for their memory modules for their reliability and performance. It isn't uncommon to find their modules in many of the specialty ordered computer systems whether on the web or at your local computer store.

When Corsair decided to design and manufacturer their own water cooling system many were curious how well their first attempt would do. Their visions weren't disappointing and continue to improve with each revision just as any other water cooling kit does. One of their latest revisions to their water blocks is the Nautilus GPU Block intended for the NVidia Geforce series graphics cards.


Specifications and Features:

Compatible with only double spaced PCI-E motherboards:

• ASUS A8N-SLI/SE/Deluxe/Premium

• ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe

• ASUS CROSSHAIR

• ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe/Wireless Edition

• ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe

• ASUS P5NSLI

• ASUS P5ND2-SLI/Deluxe

• ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe/SE Deluxe

• ASUS P5N32-SLI Premium/WiFi-AP

• DFI LANPARTY UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert/Venus

• DFI LANPARTY UT NF590-SLI-M2R/G

• MSI K9N Diamond

• MSI K9N SLI Platinum

• MSI K8N Diamond Plus

• ABIT Fatality AN9 32X

• ABIT AN9 32X

• ABIT KN9 SLI

Closer Look:

The Compatibility List has many of the latest motherboards to hit the market and all of them with SLI capabilities. Naturally, if you have a single graphics card motherboard the GPU block should work perfectly fine without having to worry about how close the next slot may be. When it comes to the SLI capable motherboards it becomes much important to know which manufacturers fabricated platforms with PCIE slots too close together to work with. The list is always being updated so check Corsair's website. One nice thing about the latest motherboards is that the odds have increased dramatically in favor of almost any successful after market cooling solutions.

Box

Parts

The Contents

Commonly you'd find water blocks coming in a single package only and requiring some special mounting kits and hardware. The Nautilus GPU Water Block doesn't need anything extra or special to use the kit. As a matter of fact, the blocks can be ordered in a SLI or Single package for your extreme SLI graphics cards. This particular package is indeed the dual water block package which can easily fit many of the NVidia graphics cards.

Open Boxes

Tops

Bottoms

Water blocks are a big variable in that they can definitely effect the outcome of performance in any water cooling kit. The best performing blocks tend to use quality copper and well machined pins directly over the processors which they keep cool. Also, the better the finish is on the surface that makes contact, the better the heat transfer will be. The Nautilus GPU Blocks aren't completely smooth as you can just barely feel the machined copper surface area. Since these blocks directly make contact with the GPU, they should be at least as be as smooth as possible. However, they are at least flat and even.

Brazen Copper

Identical Ports

Contacts w/Memory

The acrylic cap covers a series of nicely brazened copper channels which make one large loop that covers about half the circumference of the video card. Corsair chose to use some well manufactured acrylic as you it's very clean and has no discernable blemishes, bubbles, or warping. The block is designed to be able to cover and cool all the memory modules as well as the GPU. It doesn't matter how much memory is on your NVidia graphics card as it will cover any all the integrated memory modules that the PCB might have.

Top	Copper Fins	Machined Base
Flow Channels	Barb Attachment	Thick Copper & Acrylic

The SLI Bridge is made from some more thick acrylic which can handle a decent amount of tension if the graphics cards are in SLI. Heat of course, will not be an issue in any way since the water will never be able to reach temperatures too high or too low to handle. Included with the SLI Channel Bridge are the screws and O-rings which use the included star wrench to assemble.

Tubing Kit

SLI Bridge

Dual Port