Advantages: high performance at low price Disadvantages: Instructions not clear
Not being too sure on the quality of Gainward I was hesitant in buying this card but was swayed by the price and performance ratings.
This time I won't go into the basics and history and go straight in to the review of the card.
~ The Package ~
Mine came in the exact box next to the title, it's a large box and the card is then encased within another box so I would say is well protected.
In the box came the card and all the cables you need for standard monitor or digital and power.
~ The Card ~
At first sight I was quite impressed, it has a red PCB and black heat sink and fan with a large mesh type casing around it. Normally I would rip off the stock heatsink and fan and replace it with a high performance one, no need to here as it cools the card very well.
I noticed straight away that it has dualDVI but it ...
Advantages: Fast, Good Overclocker Disadvantages: Competitors like the 7900GT/7900GTO virtually the same price
The Gainward 7950GT "Golden Sample" is one of the fastest 7xxx series graphics cards on the market, and Gainwards card doesn't dissapoint!
It runs on a PCI-e connector, however as it draws more power than the slot can provide it needs an extra power connector on the side. This is NOT compatible with an AGP board, and does need a beefy power supply (i recommend 400+ watts).
The card has a dual slot cooler - that is to say that it takes up the width of one slot, and then the fan on the card takes up the space of another slot. The fan is quiet and looks sleek, however the card has a black piece of metal on top to make it look sleek and i've found that while this has no affect on temperatures, it's not helping the airflow and does nothing but take up unnecessary room in my case, however it was easy to remove with a screwdriver ...
Advantages: Runs very smooth, easy to set up, will play anything, easy to change settings Disadvantages: None really
I've always been a fan of ATi graphics cards to be honest, I had an ATi X850 Pro AGP card in my old computer, however this was not compatible when I got my new system as it needed PCI-E graphics card. After exploring the internet for comparisons of graphics card, on quite a tight budget, I plumped for the 7900GS from Gainward and boy am I impressed.
It will play, at very decent frame rates, anything I throw at it! Half-Life 2, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and the Sims 2 all ran rather choppily on my old X850 card, but this is very quick and has very high performance.
The installation was very easy, just open up your PC, slot it in, connect the power and away you go! The software provided by Gainward overrides the NVidia provided forceware, and to be honest, it's easier to use and does allow you to fiddle around with the clock ...
Product Information for "Gainward 9800GTX+ TV Dual DVI" »
Processor / memory
Graphics Processor / Vendor
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+, NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX
Clock Speed
745 MHz, 675 MHz
Video Memory Installed
512 MB
Technology
DDR3 SDRAM 256-bit
Memory Clock Speed
1.1 GHz, 2.2 GHz
Features
Dual Slot Fan Cooler, Nvidia Quantum Effects Technology, Nvidia 3-way SLI ready, Nvidia CUDA technology, Nvidia PureVideo HD technology, Nvidia Lumenex Engine, Nvidia GigaThread technology, Nvidia PhysX-Ready
Manufacturer's product description
PRODUCT FEATURES: Superior hardware design Powered by NVIDIA's GeForce 9800GTX+ GPU integrating high-speed DDR3 memory High performance 2-slot fan cooling Dual DVI and Video out connector with S-Video/Composite/HDTV support Provides world-class HDTV-out functionality Supports two monitors simultaneously, enabled by the NVIDIA nView Multi-Display technology Easy plug-and-play autorun installation
