This isn't the first time (or the second) that we have cast our eyes on the new Windforce cooler. We will admit we were not completely sold on the new design in that while it is not distinctly different from the old design, rather it has made some improvements where none were needed. We will also confess that the new design has grown on us of late and because of the below, the card complete with cooler looks stunning..


We believe the inclusion of a backplate should be a prerequisite of all high end graphics cards. Not only does it assist the cooling and improve card strengthening but it also looks the dog’s danglys! We would refute anyone who says this neither looks immense nor heightens the visual appeal of the card. OF course there will be those who state that a backplate does little for cooling and while this is tru in many cases, for a card that is pre-overclocked to within an inch of its life, or likely to be then any assistance in overclocking can only be a good thing.


The great looks don't stop there either as from a side profile we find GIGABYTE have seen fit to emblazon 'GHz Edition' along its midriff. We do like this, a lot! Our only complaint is that as you can see from the picture above, the backplate reads upside down? We think it would be better to see the letter set as one would view it with the card in-situ.


The card is a long beast with dimensions of L=292mm, W=129mm, H=43mm so you should take care when hoping to add this to a SFF style build.


The I/O area is identical to that of most other recent NVIDIA GPU's in that it has DVI-I, DVI-D, HDMI and DisplayPort sockets available.