Enterprise and professional-grade hardware is rarely cooled down using liquid outside of supercomputer world, but there are situations when liquid cooling makes the most sense. EKWB on Wednesday released two new water blocks aimed at professional-grade add-in-boards (AIBs): Nvidia's A100 high-performance compute (HPC) and datacenter accelerators as well as RTX A6000 workstation graphics cards.
EKWB's EK-Pro GPU water blocks for Nvidia's A100 accelerator (powered by the A100 GPU) and RTX A6000 40GB (based on the GA102 GPU) graphics card feature a rather simplistic design comprising of CNC-machined nickel-plated electrolytic copper base with a laser-cut stainless steel top and featuring the company's proprietary Open Split-Flow design with low hydraulic flow restriction. EKWB's OSF architecture with low hydraulic flow restriction allows the use of water blocks with pumps running at low speeds or even in reversed water flow scenario and still provides sufficient cooling performance.
The water blocks cover GPU, memory, and voltage regulating modules (VRMs) of Nvidia's A100 40GB/80GB and RTX A6000 40GB GDDR6X cards to ensure sufficient cooling under high loads and prolong lifespan of components.
Meanwhile, since the water blocks are only one slot wide, they enable multiple A100 or RTX A6000 cards to be installed into a single chassis (assuming that PCIe slots provide enough bandwidth and the PSU can feed the boards) and never worry about their overheating. To add more sturdiness to the cards and enhance their longevity, EKWB made I/O plates a part of the stainless steel water block top.
As for compatibility, the water blocks have standard quarter inch fittings located on the backside, a placement that is optimal for installation into 4U chassis, but which is not always convenient in desktops / workstations. Still, since most of A100 and many RTX A6000 are installed into servers and are used remotely, such placement certainly makes sense.
Being aimed at professional and server-grade hardware, EK-Pro GPU WB RTX A6000 and EK-Pro GPU WB A100 water blocks are priced accordingly and will cost €259.90/$269.99, which is slightly higher when compared to consumer-grade water blocks.
