The GTX 780 may have launched over a year ago at this point, but the Asus Poseidon is such a unique design it’s worth revisiting the architecture. The overwhelming majority of video cards are air-cooled; water cooling is reserved for die-hard enthusiasts or AMD’s R9 295X2. Asus has taken the water-cooling concept and done something unique — it’s built a GPU that can be cooled with air or water, depending on your preferences. Typically, these two methods don’t mix — you can buy a GPU with a high-end air solution or a handful of pre-built GPUs with waterblocks attached, but an air-cooled GPU with water pipes? That’s something new and different.

Card design

How did Asus hit its design targets? By simplifying the cooling loop. Most cooler blocks use a series of channels cut into the metal of the heatsink — the water flows directly through the channels, over the top of the components, and cools the entire card. Asus’ design is simpler — water enters at one end, flows around the copper heatsink, and then exits as shown below.

This is going to have an impact on the total performance of the design, but shouldn’t prevent the water-cooled variant from outperforming the air-cooled variant. Water cooling may come with its share of headaches, but liquid absorbs heat far more efficiently than air does.



If you’ve used a high-end GPU recently, you may have noticed that the card sometimes produces an audible whine. This is caused by the power circuitry on the card itself and it can impact both AMD and Nvidia cards. Asus claims that by using high-grade power components, it has eliminated the whine — and from what we can tell, that’s true. The distinctive electronic sound, typically only audible at full load, never puts in an appearance on the Poseidon family.

Next page: The GPU, and overclockability