I recently purchased a couple 980 ftw edition cards but am looking to put them under water. Does anyone know of any water blocks that fit the ftw board ? Will the upcoming AIO system from evga work on non reference cards ?
 
Thanks all !

I was looking at those earlier, the supremacy looks to be able to work with the evga base plate. I wonder if the upcoming AIO unit will as well...

Nah, the FTW edition is too amazing to switch now lol ! I looked at some pics of the vga supremacy and it looks to be a perfect fit with the base plate i mentioned. That with some airflow should keep things cool on the mem/vrms.

Thermosphere works great on this card, just have to be a little creative.  There will be a full cover block eventually, for now use the Thermosphere since it works so well on this card.
 
The bare PCB of the GTX 980 FTW, I can see why reference waterblocks won't work.

 
I cut the Thermosphere mounting bracket so that the 4 tabs around the GPU would fit. I don't know about you but I'd rather cut a $10 mounting bracket than the baseplate to a $600 graphics card like I've seen posts of others doing which may put your warranty in jeopardy.  Some have been cutting the baseplate, don't do that. Just get a good dremel cutting wheel and mod the Thermosphere mounting bracket.  Works great and snugs up just fine. Pardon my jammies, I "worked" from home today.

 
Fits without cutting the baseplate....DON'T CUT THE BASEPLATE!!! Think of the warranty man, not worth losing it!

 
Install backplate to the baseplate. All of the baseplate mounting points work fine, sucker is on there ready to move some heat!

 
Ready to mount! Confirmed TIM makes contact as intended.

 
All good, let's mount this ****! Look how nice that looks, admit it...you are jealous!

 
So far so good, Temps barely hit the 40's and the baseplate keeps the VRM's and memory in check. I have a 80mm Noctua fan blowing directly on the baseplate, works well in my Caselabs case but as long as there is steady airflow on the baseplate you'll be good. It will be warm to the touch but keep in mind the stock cooler doesn't make direct contact, jut blows air on it so re-create and all good.
 
Hope this helps, works well for me until we have a full cover block.  Too good of a card not to be creative and find the full potential, well over 1500mhz already and haven't messed with the BIOS yet.  Use the Thermosphere!

Hey bud nice job I was looking at ftw but spoke to aquacomputer and no plans for that card..What model did you use?and did it come with baseplate and did you have to get optional bracket to mount ? Thanks

Good morning. VGA Supremacy will work great and you shouldn't have to do any modding to mount it. The Thermosphere comes with the G80 mounting bracket for Nvidia cards, that's the one I modded to make it work. No other parts needed.

The card just came yesterday so I haven't had a lot of time to work on the overclock as I leak tested most of the day, just threw one on and ran some benches and games. Got to 14k on Firestrike, that's pretty impressive as my 970 sli setup was about 16k so not as big a performance hit as I was expecting. My target is 1440p at 75fps in games, from what I have seen so far this card does that just fine. This is where I plan to stay for now, until we get 20 or 16nm instead of rehashing 28.

I suppose if someone makes a full cover block for it I'd go that way but this works great and would be a viable long term solution. If enough of us let EK know we want a full cover block for this card they might do it, has happened before.

hey loopflow nice guide there.im thinking go watercool on my pc but prob this beauty is so amazing if watercool that evga-ek dont want full block. im wondering if you use the acx 2.0 over your waterblock for cooling the front plate will work?
 

i can RMA so change ftw with SC?
 

 HYBRID Water Cooler (All in One) for GTX 980 Part Number: 400-HY-H980-B1
 
Compatibility of the HYBRID Water Cooler (All in One) for GTX 980 (400-HY-H980-B1)
 04G-P4-1980-KR EVGA GeForce GTX 980
04G-P4-1982-KR EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Superclocked
04G-P4-2980-KR EVGA GeForce GTX 980
04G-P4-2982-KR EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Superclocked
 
I like this new word; w8

The 2-Pin connector on the far right side other are bending them down for a water block on another card.
I think the when you have to bend them back up to RMA the card if needed they will break off and void the warranty.
I think you would have a hard time with this card. Remember to some how also cool the VRAM.

Gelaw
now i think you can see i fixed it kinda

Yes I can now, how and what cooling fan would you use on the card to help cool the PCB & VRAM and how would you install or mount it?

Gelaw
i see why this is not compatible the SC and the others have the fan on board instaid of the other versions i thought the package inlude the circle fan
 

No, the Blower Fan is mounted to the GPU and only the shroud is provide with the AIO unit to place over the current installed blower fan.
 
As the above user that installed a Water Block on his card I think the PCB and VRAM are going to burnout sooner rather than later.

i think i found 1 that works  Thermaltake VGA Water Block for ASUS STRIX-GTX 980

If you use the Kraken G10 watch this video, shows how to keep the baseplate on for better VRM heat removal with the G10.
 
Won't let me post a link, search youtube for this video...
NZXT Kraken G10 Install without Removing Heatsink 
 
 
 

there are to options the corsair Hydro Series HG10 N980 GPU Liquid Cooling and the kraken G10 ,NZXT have more compatibility i used the kraken personaly and you can connect the pump on your mother board and use (Gelid CA-PWM-02 PWM Fan Adapter Sleeved Cable Cord for VGA Cards Cooler Fan) with a PWM fan so youc can boost from precision X either way you will have low temps for sure