Inner Cooling Solution, Making Any Sense?

We might be repeating, and in this case we are, but it must be said that NVIDIA did take the time to learn from their past experience with dual GPU solutions and came up with something new. And you can't blame Gainward for following the reference design to the letter just as every other manufacturer has done if we don't look at the very special water cooling version. When we look at Gainward version of the GeForce 9800 GX2 we can say that only the sticker on the front will let you make the difference. And that is just simply how it is. The different manufacturers only have one item to play with to differentiate themselves from their competitors and that is having the most attractive sticker on the front. We have to agree, the red sticker with the typical face and Gainward brand is an eye catcher offering a great contrast again the black finish casing.

So how do we get started, well the easy way by just looking at the card and the first that comes to mind is the black cover at both sides of the video card. Not only something that is looking great but also protects the front of the cards itself. Maybe not immediately what NVIDIA had in mind when they came up with this cooling design, but it certainly does that as well. The black cover plates cover the complete front and back of the card. You can actually see it more like the case of the graphics card which is constructed out of two parts, protecting the front and back. Some holes are strategically made on both sides which are where the inner fan is located for the intake of air. The black cover plates do add up some extra stiffness to the card as with the massive heatsink and the two individual PCB it wouldn't be so easy to keep the two PCB's together. But having applied the two cover plates at each side of the card add all it needs to make this cooling solution quite an innovation.

Removing the black cover plates isn't as easy as we thought. By just removing the screws, the back plate come off first and we get a good view on one of the PCB's of the GeForce 9800 GX2 edition. At this point we already see that the PCB is a bit more special and has a big hole which is required allow the fan to function in optimal conditions. The PCB is quite long and this due to the cooling design that needed to fit both PCB's and allow a way to circulate enough air to cool both G92 graphics chips. We can also easily spot the area where the GPU is located, as there is a kind of square around it and a larger concentration of electronic components and soldering points. Removing the front plate requires a bit more handy approach, though can be removed with not too much trouble. Again nothing special about but more like a mirror view with again the back of the PCB, which is almost identical.

With the metal cover removed we are still looking at a graphics card that is quite sturdy with two PCB's back sides to show. Looking at the heatsink alone you can see that it is fitted between both PCB's and is quite large. The cooling solution itself consists of one single fan, which looks a bit like a rotor which will push the cool air through the inner graphics card. And this part is where the large heatsink comes into play and will guide the air through its many fins to extend the heatsink cooling area to a maximum and to allow as much heat reduction as feasible. Now since both PCB are facing each other with the front side, that means that both GPU's, as well as the memory chips are facing each other and are making contact with the heatsink. This also means that the heatsink has two plates making contact with the GPU's with in between the aluminum fins to guide the air towards the back of graphics card. These fins are positions in a way to lead the air towards the back and top venting holes for maximum air output.

Turning around the Gainward BLISS 9800 GX2 accelerator we spot the power connectors at the very end of the graphics card. The GeForce 9800 GX2 needs a lot of power and therefore comes with a 6-pin and 8-pin power connection. Make no mistake, both are required to get the GX2 to function. Meaning that you really need a good power supply that has both a 6-pin and 8-pin PCI Express power connection, if not the system will just not want to work and one of the power connections will show red instead of green. Yeah indeed, each power connector has some lights to show if the needed power connection is attached. Once both are plugged in, these will be both give a green light and you are ready to. We also notice that there is just one fan power cable which is attached to the PCB that has no PCI Express interface. This means that only that PCB is controlling the fan speed, which is something to keep in mind when thinking about some tweaking later on.

Looking at the other side, we get a clear view on the exhaust grill that comes with the rear I/O plate which is featuring dual DVI connection as well as an HDMI output. The exhaust grill is positioned just below the two DVI interfaces and will partly guide the hot air out of the system. We also need to point out that the GX2 comes with a single SLI connection at the top, which can be used to partner with another GX2 graphics card and as such form a quad SLI configuration. There is only one SLI connection as the second SLI interface is used internally to connect both PCB's together, that will in return work together. In fact this GeForce 9800 GX2 edition is already an SLI configuration of two G92 based graphics cards. You could see it somehow as two GeForce 9800 GTX cards running in SLI but at a lower clock speed. This card will certainly unleash some great visual gaming sceneries and experience.