Alright, I'm absolutely tired of looking around and researching for about a month. I'll break down and flat out bother some people. I apologize for some rambling, I try to give a lot of details to save on anyone having to post questions that could have been answered in my OP. I'm trying to bring readers up to speed as to my adventure thus far. You can skip to the end (below the line) if you want to skip the fluff between.
I've got all my stuff for the new build, except, decided that I wanted to really go water cooling this time around (Been doing my own computers for almost 20 years now). Before anyone judges, I know for my first water cooling build, it's recommended to ease into these things but that's never been my way. I will be doing a custom loop Hard/rigid tubing (pretty set on the easier PETG rather than Acrylic) and I'm not going to be using much for fittings on bends and elbows, I'll be making those bends myself. I'm not scared of this project at all.
Quick look at what I got so far...
Case - ThermalTake The Tower 900
MoBo - Asus ROG Maximus X Hero (WiFi-AC)
CPU - Intel I7 8700k
GPU - EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Sc2 Gaming (11G-P4-6593-KR)
PSU - EVGA SuperNova 750 G2
Memory - 32GB (16x2) Gskill Tridentz RGB DDR4-3000 14-14-14-34 (later to buy 2 more sticks when they aren't so crazy in price for a total of 64GB)
Primary Boot Drive - NVMe SSD 960 EVO M.2 - 500GB
Secondary Storage Drive - 3TB HDD
OS - Windows 10 Home
Looking to Liquid cool - I know it's overkill
D5 Loop with 250-350mm Reservoir and 360(Triple) 30-40mm Radiator (1 loop for GPU and 1 loop for CPU) I'd go the 560's(Quad) but one component on each loop with a 360, from what I've read, I'd just be showing off with 560's. But I'm looking at watercooling as not just a way to OC, but less consistent high temps on my babies should equate to a longer happier life right?
I am STUCK. You all know the 1080 Ti scene out there (heck, the *insert any GPU* scene). So i decided I would do what about everyone has to and monitor the retailers for a card that came down "reasonably" enough or even just came in stock for that matter - I work graveyard so I have some good weekday hours where I get a little more leniency when shopping as not EVERYONE is on during those dark cold hours of the twilight.
Boom - an EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 Gaming ICX pops up. Now I know if you're watercooling you really only need a bare-bones $700 Nvidia FE edition, but trying to get one of those in the seconds they have stock, what? once a month? I'll stick with playing powerball. So a good card pops up, 900 bucks, I like EVGA, always have. So I jumped on it, you kind of have to, though I did check EKWB for compatibility first. Wasn't maybe 10 - 20 minutes after that it's back up to $1100 - $1200 I think.
No way did I think this would be about the ONLY card out there that doesn't have a water block. We're talking literally a few mm's of collision here. A couple fan headers come into question on the card, and it wouldn't take but a small change on a current waterblock to make it compatible. I recently worked with a rep at EKWB because they had the 11G-P4-6593 model listed as compatible, but researching deeper, everyone was finding out that it wasn't. Of course my card was 11G-P4-6593-KR but researching EVGA the -KR has to do with the card warranty. So my model IS 11G-P4-6593. After working with the EKWB rep, we confirm there is collision on the waterblock and it's not going to work.
Solutions presented through online researching?
1. I could put a side cutting bit onto a dremel and cut the few mm's of clearance that I need on the WB and make it fit. That's easy enough for the Header up by the 6+8 pin power connectors, except it's acrylic and most people know stressing acrylic is risky for chips and cracks. However, the other header is down by the DVI port, this lil guy looks like it would clear but both fan headers are about 6-7mm in height, and the waterblock cut-out sections have 5.5mm max clearance. The REAL problem is this area looks like it's a cut-out of the actual Nickel plated copper block. Sure I can cut some out without hurting the function of the block, but it's nickel plated copper, if I cut into that, it's no longer nickel plated there and I don't know if that's a problem for corrosion or not - exposing the copper underneath? This is my grey area, I don't really know a lot about the whole corrosion scene. I gather nickel and copper don't exactly love each other but they make blocks nickel plated copper? A silver kill coil is apparently not very effective in a nickel explosed loop? I dunno
2. I pluck the plastic housing from the fan headers, and either bend the pins down for clearance or solder them out. This voids a $900 - $1200 GPU warranty, yes #1 above voids the waterblock warranty but that's $150. Now if I ever had to RMA the card, sure I could replace the headers, make it "Look" like I didn't void the warranty, but that's a bit shady and not my style at all. I'm the guy that tells the store at checkout that they charged me a couple bucks less. So I'm VERY uncomfortable doing #2 here as a solution. It's basically an absolute last ditch effort where I abandon any RMA hope in the life of the warranty.
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So basically here I am, asking the community, previous or current 1080 ti SC2 Gaming 11G-P4-6593 owners who have Full-cover water block liquid cooled their cards if there is any current solution out there?
If so, did you alter the block in any way to make it fit? How did you go about this? Was it stressful or risky (i.e. might crack the acrylic that you drilled out or something along those lines that would trash the block and you'd have to start over)
EVGA lists a HydroCopper block that fits THIS card. (EVGA Hydro Copper Waterblock for GTX 1080 Ti 400-HC-5599-B1)
Can anybody confirm it is compatible?
If I go with this, I would love to know if the top plate is able to come off. I'd prefer being able to see the liquid flow through the block like with some other blocks out there, but at this point Preference just might be a fairy-tale, I can get over it though.
Thanks for anyone who read through all of that and thanks to anyone's input or advice going forward. If anyone needs pictures of the problem areas, I can provide those. I didn't put them in right away because I'm guessing anyone that has the card and water cools already knows EXACTLY what I'm talking about.