Gainward Ultra/1100XT TV-DVI Video Card

By jw

Features:

  • 450MHz Core / 780MHz Memory (Enhanced Mode)
  • 390MHz Core / 700MHz Memory (Safe Mode)
  • 128MB 2.5ns DDR
  • 256-bit memory bus
  • 25.0 GB/s Bandwidth
  • Multi-monitor support
  • DirectX 9.0 & OpenGL 1.4
  • TV-Out
  • DVI
  • Standard 3-Year Limited Warranty

Besides the typical NVidia GeForce FX 5900XT Technology features, Gainward has added its own overclocking/tweaking utility called EXPERTool, which allows you to use the preset “Enhanced Mode” or manually overclock your Gainward graphics card.

The only other thing I will go ahead and point out is that nVidia’s default spec for Core frequency on any FX5900XT is 390MHz, which is 10MHz shy of a FX5900’s default core frequency.

Layout

When this card is compared to the Albatron 5900XT solution, you will see that the card layouts are almost identical because both companies used the NVidia reference design for their FX5900XT solutions. However, there are two things to comment about this card that you can not tell by just looking at the card. The first is that the thermal probe for this 5900XT card is disabled. So this means that when we go to overclock this card, it will not reset the core speeds at the default threshold.

**UPDATE** – We have just found out from Gainward that our review sample features Hynix HY5DU283222 AF-25 memory which is 2.5ns memory capable of spec speeds at 800MHz DDR. However, Gainwards retail cards will only feature 2.8ns memory (rated speed of 700MHz DDR) which will be thoroughly tested to ensure Gainwards advertised speeds 780 MHz DDR for the Enhanced Mode speeds. So needless to say, our overclocking section should be expected to show results much better than what would be found in most retail cards.

Finally, since this card is part of Gainward’s FX PowerPack! product series, air cooling is used for this card. However, Gainward also has two other product series which offer different cooling methods — CoolFX and SilentFX.

  • FX PowerPack!: Use fan or heatsink for cooling
  • CoolFX PowerPack!: Use advanced water cooling system
  • SilentFX PowerPack!: Use heatpipe for cooling to eliminate fan noise

Now that you know how Gainward has designed their version of a 5900XT solution, it is time for performance testing!

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