The Card

Using a Gainward NVIDIA card, you feel a bit dirty due to that red PCB. We love it, though, and it's a bit of a trademark. It's funny that you instantly associate that red PCB with ATI, but underneath the custom dual fan cooler is an NVIDIA GPU.

A quick spin around the card doesn't initially find any surprises with two 6-Pin PCI-E power connectors and two SLI connectors, yet when we get to the I/O department we've got two Dual-Link DVI connectors and a HDMI and DisplayPort connector.

The inclusion of a full size HDMI port is the main reason we're lacking a mini HDMI to HDMI cable in the bundle which is provided with other NVIDIA cards that utilize the mini HDMI port.

Specifications

Let's be honest; it wouldn't be a Golden Sample unless the card was overclocked out of the box. Gainward has taken the time to round off some of the numbers and give us quite an attractive overclock which is the highest to date.

The core comes in at 650MHz which is a nice jump from the default 607MHz number. What this has in turn done is push the Shader clock from 1215MHz to 1300MHz. If that wasn't enough, Gainward has then rounded the 1280MB of GDDR5 off from 837MHz to 850MHz or 3400MHz QDR.

The overclock should yield a nice performance increase. Fingers crossed we're able to see some decent figures from the card. At the moment it looks like we're onto a winner.