When we are talking about graphics cards, some of the well known brands like ASUS, EVGA, XFX and MSI comes to the picture. ECS too are trying to break into the foray of the enthusiasts market by coming out with this water cooled card. And it certainly has made an visual impact on us with that huge box and defining Hydra logo. This a very different package than what we have seen from other brands as it is a complete SLI config in a box, based upon their GeForce 9800 GTX+ graphics cards. Let us see if ECS will be as good as it looks with the GeForce 9800 GTX+ cards for some SLI gaming action and their water cooling system provided in terms of pure dual GPU performance. - VR-Zone

ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ SLI Hydra Dual-GPU Review

To start really, this Hydra package is huge. But then again also quite normal considering that you get two GeForce 9800 GTX+ cards both prefitted with a water cooled solution and with all the needful components included. The box itself is very neat, providing all the details as required. Inside the first thing you will notice is the colored instruction sheet that is giving all the details about the Hydra edition and the setup required. Next you will find that all the hardware components are well packed internally with plenty of styrofoam to keep it all in place during transportation. Which is quite essential with the different items.

We did attempt to overclock the ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ SLI and run some of the benchmarks in a bid to observe the effects of the overclock. Our overclocking was done using RivaTuner, where we started with bumping the core, memory and shader frequency upwards and in parallel running 3DMark Vantage to check if the overclock is stable and doesn't produce artifacts. As such our final overclocks for the ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra config we reached 840/2400MHz with the shaders running at 2000MHz. On that aspect we really have nothing to complain about as it is quite a high overclock for an SLI setup already.

As such, the first impression of the ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra edition was marvelous. Starting with the huge box with the three headed beast to the number of additional accessories provided which will really delight users like us. The components were very well packaged and well protected against any possible physical damage during mode of transportation with the thick styrofoam. Wires of the water pump and the fan on the radiator were also well sleeved and managed. Following the instructions, setting up the water cooling system was smooth and swift. This is a great value as it would give anyone a chance to go for it.

Powering up the ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ and the liquid cooling system, we find our rig bask in a nice bluish glow and here is the weird part. The coolant is in a bright green color while the fans on the GPU's and radiator fan are blue in color. Somehow, this combination of color doesn't match and appeal to us at all. Aesthetics part aside, we find the cooling solution for the ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ to be very effective.Furthermore the whole ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra edition is being mounted in a case where the wires are just messy with several cables obstructing the air flow, which is not as ideal as it should.

The downside of the liquid cooling system is probably the fan controller for the radiator fan. It is wired along with the power cables of the pump hence located deep in the casing, making it very difficult to adjust the fan speed readily. The ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ itself proved to be quite overclockable, we managed to bump the core to 840MHz, the memory to 2400MHz and the shader to 2000MHz clock speed. We did not really push the ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ to their limit. There should be more overclocking headroom with some voltage tweaks done on these cards, since temperature are no longer an issue.