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A Closer Look:::...
Turning to the card itself, the initial impression is that it's very big and very heavy. Of course these things are all relative, and unless you've had your hands on the only other compatative product, the ASUS EN6800GT DUAL, which is an absolute behemoth of a card you perhaps won't appreciate how compact it actually is for a dual 6800GT powered product.
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It's BIG! |
For an idea of scale, this is how the 3D1 looks alongside Crucial's Radeon X850XT.
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But not THAT big! |
Even the rear of the card is actively cooled, though the fan employed here is smaller and quiter than the main fan which, when running at anything like flat out, is quite disturbingly loud.
On the plus side, the fan is of the ball bearing variety and is guaranteed for 50,000 hours.
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Card - Rear |
Also on the back of the card in the lower left hand corner are a couple of DIP aswitches which you use to force the card into single or dual GPU mode.
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Card - Rear DIP Switches |
Naturally when you're cooling two powerful GPUs and eight memory chips you need a lump of a cooler, and that's exactly what you get. Although it doesn't vent externally, it is wide enough to essentially turn the card into a two-slot solution.
Dual DVI out will please users of digital monitors, though the inclusion of only a single DVI to VGA dongle means you'll need to pick up an extra or fit the supplied bracket.
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Card |
The cooler actually comes in two sections, though I'm betting this is more to do with ease of manufacture than it having any thermal advantage. A smaller heat sink is also placed over the power MOSFETS to keep them from cooking themselves, and air from the fan is directed over this sink after passing through the main one.
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Card |
I'm not sure quite how early this sample is, so I'm not sure whether or not the slightly crude butchering of the power circuit sink has made it to the cards on the shelves. I doubt it looks quite as rough as this though.
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Last Minute Mods? |
A definite plus of this card is the Quad View function. The supplied dual D-sub bracket plugs into the connector on the top edge of the card and immediately allows you to connect up to four displays. If that's a feature you need it almost warrants the asking price by itself.
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Quad View |
Compatibility is certainly an issue with this card. before we even get to the issue of which chipsets you can use this graphics card with. At around 2 inches this, it's not really the bloated front sink that's the problem. Sure it'll encroach onto the adjacent slot but that's nothing new. The fact that it extends very close to the bottom of the board does make it slightly painful trying to reach the PCI-e slot's card-locking mechanism though, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the type of lock employed.
No, it's the slimmer rear sink that has the potential to spoil the party. If you currently need to unseat your graphics card in order to add or remove memory, then you can be pretty much assured that the extra thickness of the 3D1's rear sink is going ot obscure enough of your memory slots to make fitting a module impossible, at least without taking a hacksaw or Dremel to it and simultaneously taking out your warranty. Alternatively it may clear the memory slots, just, but sit on the memory retention clips and not properly sleat in its PVI-e slot fully. Not a great idea even with a card of less obese proportions.
Then there's the sheer physical length of the card. At 260mm it's a fair bet there are several cases out there that will be physically unable to accomodate its portly dimensions.
Finally there's the weight. I make it that this monster tips the scales at a cool 1Kg, that's almost two and a quarter pounds for those who still like to work in real money. You really don't want this thing to work loose during transportation and on that score I'd have been far happier to see Gigabyte use a hole in the mounting bracket rather than a slot.
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