 Today I have kind of a special unboxing from... well, I don't know. I don't know who to tell you it's from because this is more of a collaborative effort between two different companies. I've actually got two of them, but I'll only be doing an overview of one. So the first thing we see when I open it up is a backplate. So this is an EVGA backplate. It says GeForce GTX 590 on it. Okay. So we've got some gaps in the back for cooling the various components. We've also got all the places for screws to mount on it. This is like a brushed aluminum look. Looks just outstanding. On the other side of it we've got thermal pads for all the memory spots that need to be covered, which leads us to a piece of styrofoam. And then finally, well not really finally, it didn't take that long, the EVGA classified GeForce GTX 590... water block. Sorry about that. So why don't we have a look at the accessories that are included first. We've got two stubby 1 half inch fittings right there. So these go into the G1 quarter threads. You can arrange them any way you want, whether you want them both on this side, both on the opposite side, or you can do one one way and one the other way. Whatever works best for the way your tubing is routed. Next we've got a couple of stoppers. So you take those stoppers and you put them opposite where the fittings are. So you go like this so that it doesn't just go straight through the card and spray all over your motherboard. Got some mounting hardware. Got a couple little lock washers. Got some little screws there. So you'll need that in order to mount the block. Finally, some thermal compound. So the thermal compound will only, in a case like this, be for the GPU locations themselves and not for all of the memory and VRM and other components that are on the PCB of the video card. So let's have a look at the construction of this product overall. And so far I've only gotten to the EVGA part of the collaboration, but as soon as I remove this piece of plastic right here, it will become more apparent who the other co-conspirator is in creating this product. See there? Powered by Swift Tech. So that is machined into the Delrin. So this is a very, very durable block for a couple of reasons. Many water blocks over the past, you know, as long as people have been water cooling, are constructed from a copper base. So here you can see this is a copper base plated with nickel. Nickel is not harmful to your water cooling loop because it is close enough to copper that you're not going to have problems with corrosion. Okay? So what that basically means is it is safe to mix a loop with nickel blocks and copper blocks, whereas it is not safe to mix a loop with copper blocks and aluminum blocks. So remember that you guys. Okay? Also on the top, instead of using a plexi top, which is a clear top, Swift Tech has opted to go with a Delrin or acetal top, which means that the odds of it cracking are basically nothing. With plexi, especially around the fittings, like around here, sometimes if people crank the barbs in too tight, for example, you know, just tighten that down really hard, what can happen is you can have little microcracks form around it from the pressure. Delrin is a very, very durable material and I would be floored if you could actually manage to damage a Delrin top to water block that way. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm just going to take off part of this because I don't want to make too much of a mess of these before I'm ready to install them on the cards. Now normally you can only get a block like this with an EVGA classified 590 card, but because I already have cards right here, 590s, I asked the EVGA to send me just the blocks for this particular showcase. So I'm going to show you guys the mirror shot. Check that out. I mean look how reflective this thing is. Very, very beautiful surface machined on there. So how does the technology actually work here? Well, Swift Tech's been making blocks for pretty much as long as anyone's been making commercial grade blocks, so the design is very simple but very effective. So now with a single GPU card, the design of a full cover block is fairly simple. It needs to get a little bit of water flow over the VRM components which are generally at the back of the card. It's a little bit, you know, not a huge deal. You go away. Thank you. So a little bit of cooling there because those components do get hot under air cooling but under water cooling it's a breeze. It's no big deal. And then they need to route the water around to the center of the card and then out the outlet. So in the inlet, around to the center of the card where the GPU is located and then out the outlet. Now with a dual GPU card it's a little bit more complicated. So the water path in this particular block goes in one and it doesn't really matter which. In one goes through a pin matrix, a very tight pin matrix here which is around one of the GPUs, okay, which actually has a like a blocker on the Delrin top in order to accelerate the water as it flows around the GPU itself. Then it widens out again, okay, so it flows quite easily here and then it goes under another another tight, a tight covering from the top through another pin matrix and then out the outlet. So why does Swift Tech do this? The reason is that cooling performance is dramatically better when you restrict the flow of the water so it flows faster over the parts that need to be cooled the most. So why don't they do it throughout the entire block? Well that's a smart design decision as well. What that would mean if they had the entire block restrictive and impinging and jetting the water onto the surface of the water block to cool the card would make this block very restrictive. So it would mean in order to run a couple of these blocks with dual 590s in a loop you would need like a couple pumps in order to just get the water through there at a reasonable velocity. Last but not least we've also got a glowing EVGA logo up here at the top so that's going to look pretty good when it's installed in my ultimate machine which I will be building over the next little while and that is lit up by using the fan header on the PCB itself so we've got a little cord there. I don't know if I mentioned this already but on the back you can see all of the RAM cooling spots as well as thermal pads to cover the VRM portion of the cooling on the back. So thank you for checking out my unboxing and overview of the EVGA Classified GTX 590 block. Don't forget to get one of these. You will have to buy an EVGA GeForce GTX 590 classified water cooled edition card. Thank you for checking it out. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews and other computer videos.