Active backplate for video cards, EK’s solution for RTX 3080 and 3090

After announcing its arrival several weeks ago, the Slovenian EK Water Blocks officially introduced a active backplate for GeForce RTX 3080 and 3090 video cards based on Nvidia’s reference design. The new product is part of the EK-Quantum Vector RE RTX line and its goal is to keep temperatures even more under control, cooling with the liquid too the back of the PCB, on which we sometimes find several VRAM chips.

The active backplate it connects to the waterblock via a new terminal which replaces the standard one offered with the waterblock. This causes the entire cooling circuit to require only one inlet and one outlet, thus removing the need for additional connections that would make the system less appealing to the eye.

“The new active Vector backplate cools all hot spots on the PCB that are behind the GPU and VRM. In the case of the RTX 3090, the rear-mounted VRAM is cooled, while the RTX 3080’s PCB is cooled around the front-mounted VRAM. The liquid is channeled over all of these critical areas, “the company emphasizes.

The active backplate expects a dense set of fins and six channels through which the coolant flows. As for the construction, the base is in nickel-plated electrolytic copper, while the top is in uncritical or acetal material. The rest is anodized or nickel-plated aluminum and does not come into contact with liquid.

To complete the whole thing there is the D-RGB lighting, through an LED strip, but only on the model with acrylic top. For the rest there are a total of eight ARGB LEDs that can be synchronized with the technologies of various motherboard manufacturers.

The new EK-Quantum Vector RE RTX active backplate is already on sale on the EK website at about 140/145 euros depending on the version, with the start of deliveries scheduled for early April.