Gigabyte’s latest RTX 2080 Ti and 2080 cards plunge into liquid cooling

Gigabyte added three new graphics cards to its GeForce RTX lineup that cater to users who like liquid cooling. Two of them are for setups that already have their own custom water cooling loops, and the other comes with an all-in-one liquid cooler attached.

Starting with the former, the new Aorus GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and 2080 Extreme Waterforce WB models both trade the air cooling solutions found on other custom models for full-coverage waterblocks. They use standard G1/4-inch connectors to fit most tubing.

These are factory overclocked models with relatively aggressive boost clocks. The 2080 Ti boosts to 1,770MHz, which is 225MHz faster than Nvidia's reference blueprint, and 135MHz higher than Nvidia's own overclocked Founders Edition model. Similarly, the 2080 hits a 1,890MHz boost clock out of the box. That's 180MHz faster than reference, and 90MHz higher than the FE model. Gigabyte also goosed the memory on both cards, to 14,140MHz (up from 14,000MHz).

There could be headroom to spare. To help keep things stable, Gigabyte opted for a 16+3 power phase design on the 2080 Ti and a 12+2 power phase design on the 2080. Both cards are backed by a four-year warranty.

If a custom liquid cooling loop is not your bag, you can still dip your toes in the shallow end with the Aorus GeForce RTX Xtreme Waterforce. The non-WB variant sports a self-contained liquid cooler—it's attached to a 240mm radiator with a pair of 120mm RGB fans. Just plug the card in and mount the radiator, and you're good to go.

Like the WB version, it's built on a 12+2 power phase design and boosts to 1,890MHz out of the box, along with a 140MHz overclock on the memory.

Gigabyte didn't say when these new models will be available or for how much. We don't expect them to be cheap, though, even by RTX standards.

Paul Lilly

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).