A couple months back, graphics card manufacturer Galaxy, which is known in Europe as KFA2, changed its name to Galax for both regions. Beyond that, its strategy hasn't changed, however, as it is still building gorgeous high-end white graphics cards. Normally, its cards carry large extravagant air coolers, but this time around the company decided it's time for some liquid cooling, introducing the custom water-cooled HOF series.
With this announcement, Galax announced two such cards, the GTX 970 HOF Watercooled and GTX 980 HOF Watercooled. Aside from the water blocks and clock speeds, the PCBs of both cards are identical to their air-cooled HOF counterparts.
The water blocks were co-designed with Diamond Cooling to cool all the active components on the card, including the GPU, memory and VRM circuitry. The blocks are made of copper and have a nickel plating to protect against corrosion, along with a clear acrylic top to show off their insides. Additionally, the blocks feature a full-cover design, meaning that every part of the PCB is covered for maximum aesthetic appeal. The threads for fittings are G1/4", making them compatible with the most popular fitting size. Flow direction doesn't matter for thermal performance.
The GTX 970 and GTX 980 Hall of Fame Watercooled cards feature a non-reference PCB, which offers improved VRM circuitry over reference boards along with a couple of other nifty additions. The PCBs are 10 layers thick and carry an 8+2 phase VRM circuit for the GM204 GPU. They also come with a tool to increase the GPU voltage beyond Nvidia's specified limits for even further overclocking, and naturally, there is also a handy hardware- based dual BIOS, which is useful for when you messed one up and need to fall back on another.
The GTX 980 HOF Watercooled is clocked at a respectable 1304 MHz base, with a GPU Boost 2.0 clock of 1418 MHz. The GTX 970 variant will be clocked at 1216 MHz, with a boost spec up to 1380 MHz.
Pricing for the cards is a little steeper than your standard cards, though, with the GTX 980 HOF Watercooled carrying an MSRP of $799.99. The GTX 970 HOF Watercooled isn't listed for purchase yet.
Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.
