Intro

Once we opened the door to GPU block testing with the NVidia GTX480 Full Cover roundup, universal blocks have been on our minds. Sure, Full Cover blocks get all the glory with their shiny looks and customization to specific cards, but there is a whole other avenue for us liquid coolers. And, this is where the universal blocks come in. Often times the full cover blocks take a few weeks to land at retailers once the GPU’s are released, the universal blocks are ready to go any time. That is of course if AMD or NVidia do not introduce a new mount layout.

Overall, Universal GPU blocks are much like our beloved CPU blocks, allowing us the luxury of carrying over the blocks with our loops when we upgrade hardware. Again, the only real ancillary product you may have to purchase is a mount plate, some ram sinks or a unisink… but that is it. When I first started planning for testing universal blocks, I had no idea just how many universal blocks were out in the wild. Even though we were not able to secure them all, we have quite the collection for testing, some older and some freshly released and even a custom entry from our very own tester Eric (Vapor) Hassett. With that said, it is time for the big unveil of the blocks and card we will use for the remainder of this review, I present to you, the NVGTX480 Universal Block Roundup.

We are once again using an MSI NGTX480; the GTX480 is quite the heat producer and has an IHS over the GPU core. Additionally, this GTX480 allows us to use one of the better full cover blocks from our previous roundup for a direct comparison to see how the universal blocks stack up. However, universal blocks do not cover the memory and VRM areas like the full covers do. Cooling these is important, and may require additional purchase of ram sinks or a unisink, and for our testing, we are using a modified Swiftech GTX480 Unisink. My initial mod work with a Dremel did not remove enough material for some of the barb ports to clear, so I did end up taking the cut out section down to the flat portion of the unisink. What this also means is for those using ram sinks may have to do some modding as well. Anyhow, my reasoning for selecting the unisink was for ease of testing multiple blocks and that I could mount a fan right to it for additional VRM and memory cooling, the test bench does not have the same airflow you will have inside a case.

Now that you have been introduced to the gang, let us move on and take a closer look at the blocks included for testing in this round.