MSI taps Corsair to liquid cool its GTX 1080 Ti Sea Hawk cards

All-in-one liquid coolers have become popular alternatives to air cooling because they're relatively easy to install, sometimes offer better performance, and require zero maintenance (unlike regular liquid cooling). They're not just for CPUs, either—MSI announced a pair of new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Sea Hawk cards that have been outfitted with AIO liquid coolers from Corsair.

The GTX 1080 Ti Sea Hawk and Sea Hawk X are the same except for the clockspeeds, with the latter sporting faster frequencies in both Gaming and OC modes.

Here is a look at the Sea Hawk X's clocks:

• OC Mode: 1,569MHz base, 1,683MHz boost
• Gaming Mode: 1,544MHz base, 1,657MHz boost
• Silent Mode: 1,480MHz base, 1,582MHz boost

And here are the clocks on the regular Sea Hawk:

• OC Mode: 1,506MHz base, 1,620MHz boost
• Gaming Mode: 1,493MHz base, 1,607MHz boost
• Silent Mode: 1,480MHz base, 1,582MHz boost

Both cards sport a full-coverage cooler attached to an AIO kit based on Corsair's Hydro Series H55 design. It consists of a 120mm aluminum radiator with a quiet fan attached. This is what keeps the GPU cool, while the memory and VRM are both air cooled in each card.

There's also a solid metal backplate on both Sea Hawk cards. This provides rigidity, if that's something you're concerned about.

Both cards also stick with Nvidia's reference power requirements, requiring 8-pin and 6-pin PCIe connectors. And as for display outputs, they come with HDMI 2.0, dual-link DVI-D, and three DisplayPort 1.4 plugins.

MSI did not say when these cards will be available or for how much.