GAINWARD GTX 770 PHANTOM Review

👤by Richard Weatherstone Comments 📅04-06-13
First Look

Compared to the reference design, the Gainward Phantom is both longer and taller. Unlike the perspex window on the reference design, the aluminium fins on the Phantom are completely exposed. You could be excused for thinking this may present problems with regard to dust with the 3 fans beneath sucking air in through those fins however, as we will see, Gainward have introduced a very neat design to counter this problem.


The massive heatsink is trimmed with a glossy black plastic shroud that looks great when polished up however it is a bit of a fingerprint magnet!


Flipping the card over we find that there is no backplate which was a shame given the nature of the card. The PCB is the same length as the reference GTX770 and if you look closely, you can see the overhang of the graphics card's cooler. The dark brown PCB is certainly not to our tastes and it was interesting to see Gainward use an old ATI four screw style bracket however the plethora of stickers, some for quality control and others to prevent meddling (more on that later) spoiled the general look of the back of the card.


Unlike the GTX770 reference design, the Gainward Phantom will occupy 2.5 slots which in real terms means you will lose the use 3 expansion slots with this card in place.


Overall, we loved the look of the Phantom. The sleek glossy finish to the shroud reminded us of the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey and like the apes in that movie, we didn't understand what the point of it was until we explored a little deeper...

24 pages « < 5 6 7 8 > »

Comments