Leadtek is a multinational company with a wide variety of product lines, one of their most known by hardware enthusiasts is the WinFast series. Under this name you can find their various graphics cards, currently Leadtek is an NVIDIA only partner. Leadtek partners with Zalman to bring us a cool and quiet GeForce 8800 GT, we compare performance of the factory overclock and find out just how quiet this newcomer can get. Today we look at their latest GeForce 8800 series video card, based on the new 65nm GeForce 8800 GT reference model, this product has been tweaked by Leadtek to offer more. And having teamed up with Zalman should bring some extra silence. - Madshrimps

Leadtek WinFast PX8800 GT ZL Edition Board Review

The Leadtek WinFast 8800 GT ZL retail box shows a photo of the video card and lists its capabilities. Based on the new NVIDIA G92 core, the Leadtek WinFast PX8800 GT comes with 112 stream processors clocked at 1625MHz, while the GPU core is clocked at 650MHz. In theory this video card is faster than the older GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, and it comes with more memory, 512MB with a 256-bit wide bus. It is powered via an extra 6-pin connection. The Zalman branded GPU cooler is quite compact but does take up a second slot in height. There are two heatpipes going from the base to the out edges of the black heatsink.

Leadtek ups the ante in the continuous struggle to deliver the best price and/or performance products to the end users. Their latest WinFast PX8800 GT ZL video card sets itself apart by a custom dual slot Zalman GPU cooler and improved specifications. The custom Zalman cooler delivers better temperatures at lower noise levels and allows Leadtek to sell this card factory overclocked, and still promise 2 year warranty. Performance wise the factory overclock doesn't really show in the numbers however, games hardly get a noticeable frame rate boost. Strange, but it seems the clock speeds are already high enough for most games.

nevertheless the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB as it stands allows for very playable frame rates in almost all current generation games. Even Crysis can be enjoyed at higher resolutions and in-game quality settings. Looking at online prices, it seems we're looking at a $10-20 increase over the none Zalman edition, not unreasonable, and you get a free game thrown in to stress your video card. If you're looking to build a decent home theatre PC which requires lower noise components and still deliver excellent gaming performance, the Leadtek WinFast PX8800 GT ZL 512MB version is a product to consider.