The 8800GTX

Here it is, the current pinacle of graphics processing power, the Gainward 8800GTX:

Not the most impressive looking card ever. The logo is a little odd and the card itself just doesn't look as cool and flashy as other nvidia manufacturers (E.G. PNY's 8800) or even ATI's x1950 range. I know Nvidia's colour is Green, but it doesn't half make the PCB look boring.

One of the first things you notice with the 8800 is that it has two 6-pin power inputs. This is because the 8800 series takes so much juice, that one is simply not enough. With future cards, Nvidia and its partners will no doubt encorporate the new standard of high end GPU power, the 8-pin connector.

Like ATI's current range of GPUs, the Gainward 8800 features an exhaust style cooler to extract the heat from that oh so busy G80 core. It works by drawing air from inside the case, blowing it over a heatsink - encased in a plastic surround - extracting the heat from said heatsink and then blowing the now rather warm air out of the back of your case.

This cooler also uses heatpipe technology to help achieve the goal of a relatively cool running card, lets hope it is up the challenge.

The end of the card features two DVI outputs and an S-Video output. The back of the exhaust cooler is grilled to stop any kiddies getting their lil' fingers stuck in there.

The back of the card shows just how many screws are needed to hold on the large cooler this card sports, eleven in total. Surprisingly the cooler is a lot lighter than that of the x1950 coolers.

This card also sports two SLI bridge connectors which presumably is to come into play in future Tri and Quad SLI setups.

Size wise the 8800GTX is about an inch longer than the x1950 and x1900 which makes the card pretty darn huge. Lets hope it doesn't pose a problem fitting it into our test case.

The x1900 is fitted with the heatsink from a Sytrin Kurformula VF1+