With more and more features being crammed into motherboards, it’s no surprise that these too are getting hotter and hotter. Gone are the small heatsink/fan combinations of yesteryear, now motherboards use complex heatpipe arrays with large heatsinks to dissipate the heat. Sometimes these elaborate solutions still aren’t enough though – I had problems with my motherboard in the recent watercooling review I put together. Pointing a 120mm at the Northbridge area solved my stability problems, but the Northbridge still ran hot – testament to just how much heat they kick out these days.



Early motherboard water blocks came in 3-4 pieces: one for the Northbridge, Southbridge and then a final block or two to cover the VRM’s. This method meant that many blocks worked on more than one motherboard, but it was often confusing knowing what block to go for. It was also difficult to plumb it all neatly, leading to messy systems - something us enthusiasts hate. Block manufacturers obviously took note of this, and we now have gorgeous, single piece waterblocks. These only require a single inlet and outlet, also making them much neater to install. As with GPU blocks this does make each block unique to the motherboard it was designed for, making upgrades expensive.



For today's review I will be using a nickel-plated, single piece waterblock from EK. Installation was simple, but it does take some time. Getting all the fittings lined up can be a right pain, but once that's done, you just bolt it down and you're away!