The 8800GTS 512MB

The GTS itself has similar artwork to that of the box; mostly black with some green styling. There's also another half face of the dog warrior, looking mad... doing his thing.

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Cooling

Of course this is simply the sticker that covers the shroud, which hides the card's cooling. The fan is coaxial and is designed to draw air from "underneath" the card and push it over the hidden heatsink.

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At the front is a vent system of sorts that allows air to also be drawn over the PWM area before tracking towards the back of the card.

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Removing the shroud - which took damaging the sticker, sorry XFX - we get a look at the heatsink charged with keeping the GPU nice and frosty.

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There are copper heatpipes feeding the aluminium fins. This is one more than was present on the old GTS and GTX coolers. Heatpipes are used in most coolers these days as they allow for the fast transfer of heat from one area to another. To read more about heatpipes, check out our glossary entry here.

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Flipping the cooler over we get a look at the core. In this case, it's solid copper with a pretty flat surface. There hasn't been any polishing so it's not particularly impressive, but this isn't necessary an indication of cooling ability.

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The fan that pushes all that air around is powered by a 4pin which is conveniently found on the board itself. Although simple this is a nice idea as it makes for much less cabling hanging around the case. Still though, I would prefer to see a standard 3pin connector so tat those who want to add an aftermarket cooler can also make sure of the onboard fan power.

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