We saw Asus showing off “Poseidon” a while ago but nothing has been heard of it since. Today they showed off some more features and photos. The card is keeping the name given to it previously and will be based off of the 780 ti GPU. It will be part of the ROG, Republic of Gamers, lineup and will feature a DIGI+ VRM, highly-durable Black Metallic Capacitors and the DirectCU H20 cooler which combines air and liquid cooling to allow for better performance and quieter operation. From what we’ve seen the card will either work under air, under water, or both simultaneously for the “ultimate” cooling.
The biggest problem we see here is the water block, like all other Asus integrated water blocks, is made of aluminum. It’s common knowledge that aluminum and copper should never be mixed in a loop to avoid corrosion. Obviously making an entire air cooled heat sink out of copper would be very expensive but Asus needs to ask themselves, is it worth it? Currently there are no retail aluminum water blocks and few radiators. Who is Asus appealing to with this card? It’s already going to carry a premium price over regular air cooled cards and our air cooled users will be able to find much better priced cards with the same performance. However, our water cooled users won’t even be able to use this card due to the aluminum based block? It might be worth it for Asus to charge that extra premium for an all copper solution so it can actually be utilized by the enthusiasts.
Either way, no price, clock speeds or availability has been announced as of this time.
