Drawn by the success of its reference GTX 680 graphics card, Gainward stepped up its efforts and came up with a new cooler for the company’s factory overclocked GTX 680 Phantom graphics cards. So now, the cooler is ready and the clocks are final for Gainward’s new top offering.
The GPU clock, or Base clock to be precise, in 3D apps stands at 1085MHz, whereas the Boost clock will be 1150MHz. Gainward decided to stick with 2GB of GDDR5 memory, just like on the reference model. However, the company overclocked the memory from 1502MHz to 1575MHz (6300MHz GDDR5 effectively).
Compared to the one on Gainward’s GTX 580 cards, the new Phantom cooler went through certain changes. As you can see, the aesthetics is still there. Although the Phantom may seem semi-passive at first glance, it actually packs two 8cm PWM fans tucked away in a special chamber within the heatsink.
Nvidia’s Kepler GPU isn’t very hard to cool but this exceptionally large cooler, which takes up two and a half slots, marries quality performance with silent operation. GTX 680 Phantom’s cooler ensures about 8°C lower temperatures than the reference one.
Unlike the reference GTX 680, which uses two 6-pin power connectors, Gainward’s juiced up card will require one 8-pin connector and one 6-pin power connector.
We found Gainward’s packaging to be quite nice, as the company included a handle as well. So now, after you purchase a GTX 680 Phantom, you can take a walk and show it off. Yeah, we know you probably won’t, but it’s still nice to know you can.
The first results we got suggest that Gainward’s GTX 680 Phantom is about 6-7 percent faster than the reference version. Stay tuned as we’ll have the full review up soon.