EKWB (opens in new tab), a Slovenian water-cooling products vendor, makes GPU blocks for almost every graphics card that comes out, besides those on the low-end. So it's no surprise that the company's now unleashed its D-RGB water block for the AMD's Radeon RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT (opens in new tab) graphics cards. The water blocks come as part of the Fluid Gaming lineup – a slightly more value-oriented lineup of custom water-cooling parts.
The EK-AC Radeon RX 5700 +XT D-RGB GPU block fits on reference versions of both graphics cards and has addressable RGB lighting, which is controllable through the hosting motherboard’s RGB software.
The cooling part of the water block is made from aluminum, which helps prevent corrosion. It covers the GPU itself, the 8GB of GDDR6 memory and, of course, the VRM (opens in new tab)circuitry. The cover is made of transparent acrylic and covers the entire graphics card for a nice, clean look. The transparent cover also helps the RGB lighting pop. It's a nice detail, especially at this price point.
EKWB also includes a matte black backplate with the unit – an accessory which (albeit in higher quality for their main line of parts) would otherwise cost about $40 extra.
The unit is available for pre-order immediately for a price tag of $134.19 (opens in new tab) and ships October 23. Unless you’re into really heavy overclocking (and even if you are somewhat into it), we reckon this water block would be the unit to go for over the more expensive EK-Vector alternative (opens in new tab), which comes with a nickel-plated copper cooling plate instead of aluminum. The RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT are great cards, but based on our testing they don’t call for the absolute best in liquid cooling gear. We suspect the aluminum plate here will do just fine.
