What is that steel plate that covers parts of certain EK GPU water blocks and why is it there? For custom PCB layout full-cover GPU water blocks like for high-end Strix, MSI and some others GPUs as well, the steel plate is applied just above the main VRM section, but it is not there for the aesthetics.
When you hear cricket like high pitched irritating noises coming from your graphics card (GPU), less often from power regulation modules (VRM) of motherboards and power supplies (PSUs), that is coil whine. This happens in almost all electrical devices, usually at a frequency and volume that’s inaudible to humans, especially inside a case. In some cases, you can hear the pitch of the coil whine change as the GPU draws more or less power, especially often at very high framerate situations.
