EVGA Releases GTX 970 With Hybrid Cooling Solution

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Water cooling has been gaining a lot of traction in the enthusiast PC market over the course of the last couple years. The advent of the closed loop water cooler really changed the game, and now we’re seeing the technology applied to more and more products. Less than a year ago it was only the most expensive GPUs that were equipped with liquid cooling solutions, but it appears that is no longer the case. Although not the first to offer liquid cooling on a lower-tier product than the flagship, EVGA just broke the mold with the announcement of the GeForce GTX 970 Hybrid Gaming.

EVGA’s GeForce GTX 970 Hybrid is a liquid-cooled version of the company’s GeForce GTX 970 SC with the blower cooler. EVGA offers a wide range of different GTX 970 cards with varying clock speeds, but curiously, it opted to use its lowest-clocked offering as the base for the liquid-cooled rendition despite clearly having the thermal headroom for much more aggressive settings. EVGA claimed the Hybrid cooler keeps the GPU 40 degrees Celsius cooler than the standard blower cooler.

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EVGA GeForce GTX 970 HYBRID GAMING
Part Number04G-P4-1976-KR
Base Clock:1140 MHz
Boost Clock:1279 MHz
Texture Fill Rate:GT/s
Memory:4096 MB
Memory Clock:7010 MHz
Memory Bandwidth:224.3 GB/s
Warranty:3 Years

The Hybrid liquid cooling solution, with its prefilled loop and 120 mm radiator, has been used on a number of EVGA’s previous products before, but it’s never been offered on a product at this price point. EVGA’s website has the GTX 970 Hybrid Gaking in stock and available for $399.99, which is only a $60 premium over the card equipped with the blower fan.

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Kevin Carbotte

 Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years. 

31 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Gam3r01
    I still dont really like hybrid cards.
    Sure they may run cooler, but these days temps are not what restrict OCs on GPUs. I also dont like the extra room they take up.
    Reply
  • kcarbotte
    17092202 said:
    I still dont really like hybrid cards.
    Sure they may run cooler, but these days temps are not what restrict OCs on GPUs. I also dont like the extra room they take up.

    I'm with you there. I've never been a fan of closed loop coolers. They are clunky, and not particularly attractive.

    to me if you're going to go water, don't go half way with it. Full custom loop all the way!
    Reply
  • turkey3_scratch
    It's comparing the card to the standard GTX 970 card, so obviously temps are half. But if you compare the hybrid to the SSC ACX 2.0 cooler by EVGA, the graphs will probably be similar. Let's face, a single 120mm radiator is really not much for cooling. All these premade GPU water coolers as well as the CPU ones seem like gimmicks to me. If someone is serious about really cooling a card or CPU well, they would built a $300 custom loop done properly. Air coolers compete too well with liquid in most common applications for 99% of users.
    Reply
  • JoeMomma
    Why?
    Reply
  • turkey3_scratch
    I just find it absurd when people spend an extra $100 or even $50 on a card with watercooling when they can spend $100 more on a better graphics card. As Gamer said, overclocking potential is not really limited solely by temperatures, the power supply plays a larger role IMO. Gotta love that artifacting.

    If people could, there are people temp-wise who could get 2000Mhz probably, but just not feasible with other limitations.
    Reply
  • thundervore
    I really do not see the point of putting this on a 970, it is like they are trying to milk these cards for all its worth.

    Personally I refuse to get another GPU until HBM comes to Nvidia. Shouldn't everyone who wanted a 970 with RAM controversy should have one by now anyway?
    Reply
  • Moneyd623
    Would the lower temperature help with the lifetime of the card? Say, if the person using said card is not interested in Overclocking? I've gotta believe that bringing a card to 50 degrees during gaming sessions over the lifetime of the card, is better than bringing it up to 80 degrees over the lifetime of the card, in terms of the lifespan of the card.

    Also All in one cards don't require the regular maintenance that custom loops require correct?
    Reply
  • Gam3r01
    17092610 said:
    Would the lower temperature help with the lifetime of the card? Say, if the person using said card is not interested in Overclocking? I've gotta believe that bringing a card to 50 degrees during gaming sessions over the lifetime of the card, is better than bringing it up to 80 degrees over the lifetime of the card, in terms of the lifespan of the card.

    Also All in one cards don't require the regular maintenance that custom loops require correct?

    They dont require any advanced maintenance other than basic cleanings.
    The temperatures will not degrade the card unless you run them extremely high. Under 80C will have little to no impact on the card, even if it did it wouldnt become apparent until long after the card stops performing well enough.
    Reply
  • razor512
    With a decent non reference cooler, there really is no need for liquid cooling on a GTX 970

    I have my GTX 970 overclocked, and the bios modded to unlock the voltage limits. I can push enough voltage to kill the GPU if I wanted to, but realistically, I can't go much beyond 1.265 V because I start to hit the VRM and PCI-e spec limitations for an 8+6 pin card. and even at that limit, the card still does not hit a thermal throttling threshold.

    The liquid cooling is only useful if the card does something like implement a 3x 8 pin design where you can then reliably pump 1.3+V into the GPU with out VRM throttling. Funny thing is that the card I have is using an air cooler designed by EVGA ACX 2.0+.

    Overall, you are better off spending an extra $69 and getting an EVGA GTX 980 with their non reference cooler that handles overclocking with no problem (power delivery issues kick in before the GPU runs into thermal issues).

    Reply
  • gadgety
    EVGA could sell their motherboards with pre-mounted waterblocks as well. Hydrocopper motherboards.
    Reply