appletax
I can get the Black card for 1050 or the base hydro card for 1200. Is the hydro (AIO) model worth an extra 150? Not interested if it gives me just a few more FPS. Needs to be a pretty big upgrade for 150 extra.
Also, do the AIOs have to be disassembled and cleaned annually? Not a fan of that.

nvserge
I've recently tried and given up on a NZXT Kraken G12 plus Corsair H80i V2 to cool my EVGA RTX 2080ti XC Gaming. My setup is in a Thermaltake View 71 case with plenty of airflow and decent cable management. The CPU (i9 9900k) is cooled by a Corsair H115i Pro AIO and have been getting idle temps around 40C on the card and mid to high 70C on air with the standard cooler.
 
I've spent a few days planning and then mounting the H80i V2 at both the front of the case as an intake, and rear of the case as an exhaust, using both Corsair fans in push/pull mode. Have done a really careful job applying the thermal paste evenly and fastening the pump head on the Kraken G12 in the most optimal position. At first, I was amazed by the very low temps on the card with the AIO when mounted at the back of the case as an exhaust. Literally getting about 32C on idle and then barely hitting 50-52C on load.
 
Running any synthetic benchmarks on the card would produce those temperatures and increase my scores by about 10%. Mind you, did not try any overclocking of the card at all, just stock Core and Memory speeds. Now for the fun part, the very high trade-off in noise levels. None of the benchmarks were run long enough to stress the liquid temperature well enough in the H80i V2 AIO, although as soon as doing some serious gaming, such as GTA5 at 1440p at 144Hz with G-Sync on, after about 10 minutes of gaming the liquid temperature would hit the 40C threshold, and the fans on the AIO would rev up to 100%, providing a significantly louder, rather unbearable experience. Messing a bit with the BIOS fan curves would yield no improvement, as the cooler has that limit override any preset fan curves and revving up the fan speeds. 
 
In conclusion, if you are thinking about doing this, use at least a 240mm AIO, if not a 360mm AIO to possibly have more capacity to keep the liquid cooler at lower fan speeds. I've carefully cleaned up the card and reapplied paste and returned to the moderate db levels of the stock air cooler. Hope this helps someone out there thinking of going this route.

HeavyHemi

nvserge
I've recently tried and given up on a NZXT Kraken G12 plus Corsair H80i V2 to cool my EVGA RTX 2080ti XC Gaming. My setup is in a Thermaltake View 71 case with plenty of airflow and decent cable management. The CPU (i9 9900k) is cooled by a Corsair H115i Pro AIO and have been getting idle temps around 40C on the card and mid to high 70C on air with the standard cooler.
 
I've spent a few days planning and then mounting the H80i V2 at both the front of the case as an intake, and rear of the case as an exhaust, using both Corsair fans in push/pull mode. Have done a really careful job applying the thermal paste evenly and fastening the pump head on the Kraken G12 in the most optimal position. At first, I was amazed by the very low temps on the card with the AIO when mounted at the back of the case as an exhaust. Literally getting about 32C on idle and then barely hitting 50-52C on load.
 
Running any synthetic benchmarks on the card would produce those temperatures and increase my scores by about 10%. Mind you, did not try any overclocking of the card at all, just stock Core and Memory speeds. Now for the fun part, the very high trade-off in noise levels. None of the benchmarks were run long enough to stress the liquid temperature well enough in the H80i V2 AIO, although as soon as doing some serious gaming, such as GTA5 at 1440p at 144Hz with G-Sync on, after about 10 minutes of gaming the liquid temperature would hit the 40C threshold, and the fans on the AIO would rev up to 100%, providing a significantly louder, rather unbearable experience. Messing a bit with the BIOS fan curves would yield no improvement, as the cooler has that limit override any preset fan curves and revving up the fan speeds. 
 
In conclusion, if you are thinking about doing this, use at least a 240mm AIO, if not a 360mm AIO to possibly have more capacity to keep the liquid cooler at lower fan speeds. I've carefully cleaned up the card and reapplied paste and returned to the moderate db levels of the stock air cooler. Hope this helps someone out there thinking of going this route.

Begging your pardon, but your post has nothing to do with his purchasing the Hybrid model of the GPU.  He's not talking about modifying an existing one. 
Secondarily, you should have chosen or devised a system that allows you better control over the fan speeds. Pro tip: Ditch the stock Corsair fans, grab a couple of Scythe AP-13 Gentle Typhoons. Run them off a motherboard header at 90% push/pull on your rad and you won't hear them and have steller temps.