Gainward CoolFX Powerpack! Ultra/2600 Water Cooled Video Card Review

The title of "world’s fastest graphics card" is a heady one. Reserved only for the cream of the crop, the outright expensive, the downright ludicrous. When used correctly, the title often applies all three superlatives to the product in question, at the same time. Simultaneously fast, expensive and slightly rediculous, Gainward love those attributes and apply them liberally to their flagship graphics cards in the quest for speed, speed and more speed, hopefully obtaining the aforementioned title so lovingly coveted..

..So since the introduction of NVIDIA’s NV40 GPU over 2 months ago, Gainward have been busy building a water block for it, set to cool both GPU and memory modules, all 256MB of which lies on the same side of the PCB as the GPU. A few tweaks here, new clocks there, supporting hardware prepared and the water block primed and ready, Gainward’s water-cooled GeForce 6800 Ultra is ready to rock.

..There’s a performance increase to be had from the Ultra/2600 CoolFX, but unless the price differential drops to within £100 of the air-cooled board, the Ultra/2600 CoolFX is hard to recommend. Undoubtedly the fastest unmodified consumer graphics card in the world in quite a few scenarios, but not far enough away from boards like the X800 PRO, XT PE and other 6800-based cards to be attractive, given the price. Excellent engineering and large marketing cojones from Gainward, but it remains out of reach for so many gamers.

Gainward CoolFX Powerpack! Ultra/2600 @ HEXUS