NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 continues to rule the roost in terms of consumer-class GPUs (it's tough to put the TITAN XP in the same bracket), but as the product cycle matures so do the partner designs of the top-performing card. Most efforts have been made to improve potential performance of the card by leveraging excellent air cooling technologies, but some adventurous souls are pushing their designs one step further. Enter Inno3D, with their GeForce GTX 1080 iChill Black

In contrast to most GTX 1080 models the iChill Black is equipped with an all in one liquid cooler (often known as a closed loop liquid cooler), i.e. a waterblock+pump module connected to a compact 120mm radiator. The differential in cooling capability between this and the reference model is substantial - whilst the GTX 1080 FE will cap out at 85C under load, Inno3D claim the iChill Black will reach a mere 60C under similar loads. Given that the Founder's Edition card can be thermally throttled in some circumstances that equates to a performance improvement straight out of the gate.



Another aspect in which the iChill Black might be a boon is noise. The main active cooling component of the card is a single 120mm fan which will - in theory - be able to cool effectively at a lower RPM than the dual 92mm fans typical of high-end solutions. The on-board fan is dedicated to VRM cooling, which could also mean relatively low RPM operation.

With 8GB GDDR5X VRAM and a Boost clock of 1759MHz, the iChill Black's specs are only a touch ahead of the reference specifications. However the cooling has the potential to push the card over the top when it comes to overclocking.

The final part of the equation is how attractive the design is, by some margin one of the better looking GFX cards around with or without an AIO cooler.

More information is available at the official site. Pricing and availability will vary by region.