Our interests today goes fully towards this Gainward GeForce GTX 480, currently the fastest single GPU graphics card. Of course, we are talking about an Fermi GF100 based board announced about a month ago. Fermi is the family name for the latest generation of GPU's from NVIDIA, and naturally comes with DirectX 11 support. This first Fermi derivative is the GF100 chipset, being NVIDIA's internal codename for the first Fermi based chip that is used for the high-end GeForce GTX 400 series cards. With above three billion transistors in 40nm, the GF100 is the largest graphics processor ever to be announced. Unlike ATI, this is the first time NVIDIA used GDDR5 memory on its high-end cards. - FudZilla

Gainward GeForce GTX 480 Graphics Version Review

Gainward prepared a new box design for the new cards. Now that the company is once again premium NVIDIA partner, Gainward didn't miss out on the chance to emphasize that on the GeForce GTX 480's box. The Gainward GeForce GTX 480 comes with reference dual slot cooling. We must admit this cooler looks pretty cool with five large heatpipes. The writing on the board proves that this GeForce GTX 480 comes from Gainward. This GF100 heats up to around 90°C, where fan noise is pretty audible and discernible from the rest of the components though it's pretty quiet in idle mode. But in general the cooling works sufficiently.

This Gainward GeForce GTX 480 is without doubt the fastest single GPU board with many advantages but a few flaws as well to be honest. So packing 1.5GB of GDDR5 memory and based on the mighty Fermi core, it brings DirectX and some nice performance to all NVIDIA fans out there. The juice it packs is enough to beat the Radeon HD 5870 in pretty much every benchmark, especially in newer games which feature DirectX 11 effects such as tessellation. Of course, we can't forget PhysX and 3D Vision support. The Gainward version is no different from the reference, and comes with dual slot cooling which does get the job done.

Namely, the cooling can get pretty loud while we would love seeing Gainward's magic touch on this card, such as the one on Gainward GeForce GTX 470 Good edition. We used ExperTool to overclock our GeForce GTX 480 which enabled us to push these GPU from the reference 700MHz to as much as 810MHz without meddling with voltages. Unfortunately, the reference cooling isn't quite intended for such high clocks and runs too loud when at maximum speed. Idle operation however, is pretty quiet. You would find Gainward's GeForce GTX 480 priced at about $599, which is the price you will have to pay for this high-end prestige.

We recommend this graphics card if you want maximum juice, but only if it won't leave you bankrupt. One thing is certain though, Gainward's GeForce GTX 480 is the fastest single GPU card around and does beat easily its nearest competitors.