EVGA contributed quite a lot of the hardware used in this system build, and that helped a lot when trying to build a stable and overclockable NVIDIA platform based system that would rock. We used their 680i 775 SLI A1 motherboard and a pair of Black Pearl VGA cards. The Black Pearl cards were eventually stripped of their water blocks when we implemented the Swiftech cooling system, but they actually worked quite well and we would have left them on if not for the fact that in SLI mode we had trouble with the valves and hoses fitting together.
For the user who wants a quick fix liquid cooled card they can just add to their preexisting system, the Black Pearl is a solid solution for that situation. We reviewed the 680i motherboard in a few different model numbers and you can see the results of the 680i A1 here and the results of the 680i LT here. It would be nice to see EVGA take the lead for NVIDIA chipset products and start having motherboards that come with preinstalled water cooled NB and SB, c’mon Andrew take the bait and push the envelope like Asus. EVGA is known for innovation and it would be great to see them have motherboards that are ready to go straight into in a liquid cooled system with parts that allow the board to be cooled along with the CPU and VGA cards.
