EK Water Blocks has been releasing a steady stream of new products for several months now. Over the summer, the company started dabbling in a fairly new product category. It wasn’t the first time EKWB had released a monoblock, but it certainly wasn’t a popular solution. These days, the company is finding that more and more, customers are looking at monoblocks for their builds, and the company has been investing heavily in this category. It even said there are two more coming before the end of the year.
"Although we launched Intel X99 Series VRM (mosfet) blocks several months ago, we had to answer the high demand for the monoblock solution," said Niko Tivadar, EK's Chief of R&D. "Monoblocks are becoming a very popular choice with enthusiast users and we will bring two more monoblocks to the market by the end of this year."
The latest release is the EK-FB ASUS X99 Monoblock designed with Asus to fit on four of Asus’s X99 motherboards. EKWB engineered the monoblock to make direct contact with the VRM modules and mount directly to the LGA2011v3 socket. The company said it supports all Haswell-E processors and the upcoming Broadwell-E CPUs.
The block follows EKWB’s typical water block design. The company said it features the EK-Supremacy EVO cooling engine technology that all of its current water blocks feature, as well as the high flow construction that allows it to be used with low powered water pumps.
EKWB constructs all of its blocks with the same material selections. The base is made of nickel-plated electrolytic copper, and EKWB is offering two options for the top: a solid black top made of high quality POM Acetal, and a clear top crafted from acrylic glass.
EK Water Blocks said in its press release that the EK-FC ASUS X99 Monoblock supports four motherboards, but technically it actually supports seven if you count revisions. The official announcement listed the following boards, but three of them have two supported versions according to EKWB’s Cooling Configurator.
Asus X99-A (USB3.1)
Asus X99-DELUXE (USB3.1)
Asus X99-PRO (USB3.1)
Asus X99-S
The Asus X99-A, X99-DELUXE and X99-PRO motherboards have USB 3.1 variants currently on the market, but the previous editions that lack the latest USB specification are supported, as well.
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The EK-FB X99 Monoblock is readily available through the EK Webshop and the company’s network of resellers. Both versions carry the same $136.99 price tag.
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.
It doesn't it runs right next to it unless you're looking at rams that have a large radiator like passive heatsink mounted on its side. All 8 of those dimms are accessible.
First MSI and now Asus .... nice to see MoBo manufacturers working to standardize layouts between models so that EK can realize economies of scale. No doubt Monoblocks will get more popular .... dying to see one for the MSI Gaming Z170A XPower Gaming Titanium Edition ... that would look astounding.
