Gigabyte GV-3D1 Dual Video Card Review :: The Card

Gigabyte 3D1
Brand	Gigabyte
Model	3D1
Graphics Chip	Dual NV43
Graphics Memory Type	GDDR3
Memory (MB)	256 (128MB per chip)
Graphics Core Clock (MHz)	500
Memory Clock (MHz)	560
Memory Speed (ns)	1.6
RAMDAC Frequency (MHz)	Dual 400
Active Cooling on Graphics Chip	Yes
Heatsink on Memory	Yes
Video Capture	Yes
Ports
Dual Monitor Support	Yes
VGA Out	DVI-I, D-Sub
Video In and Out	TV Out
Package and Support
Printed Manual	Yes
Driver CD	Yes
Performance Tool Software	Gigabyte VGA Utility Manager
Major Games	Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising, Thief Deadly Shadows
Major Software	Power DVD
VR Glasses	No
DVD Player Software	Power DVD
Video Recording Software	Power DVD

The 3D1 is on a fairly long PCB. In terms of length, it's about 2 inches longer than the PCI Express x16 slot on the Gigabyte board. The space on the board is not wasted, as there are two graphics chips on the board. It's about the same size as a reference 6800GT card from NVIDIA. One nice touch is that it's a single-slot solution allowing the user to fit the board into a SFF (Small Form Factor) PC like a Shuttle XPC.

The cooling on the board is very interesting. The heatsink covers nearly the entire PCB including the memory chips on the front of the card. There are two fans covering each of the 6600GT chips. Each fan consists of 9 fins that effectively cool the graphics chip. There is an external power connector not found on any regular 6600GT card, as two 6600GT chips draws more power than provided by the PCI Express x16 slot.

One thing this board does not have is a SLI connector as found in most of the other solutions based upon NVIDIA chips. Gigabyte only provides support for the 3D1 on their K8NXP-SLI motherboard and this card will likely only be sold with the motherboard. As a single SLI solution, there is no need for the connector though one is provided with the motherboard.

Input/Outputs on this board are identical to virtually every video card sold today, differing only in layout. Included are a D-Sub port, a DVI-I port and a TV-Out port. Dual monitors can be supported by NVIDIA's nView utility. This is a standard configuration.

The core clock on the GV-3D1 is 500MHz, which is the standard clock speed of the 6600GT chip. With 8 pixel pipelines, this provides a maximum theoretical fill rate of 4 Gigapixels a second. By way of comparison, this matches up well with 2003's 5950 Ultra, which had a 475MHz clock speed. Eight 32MB chips of 1.6ns DDR memory provide memory support. Each 6600GT has it's own bank of 128MB 128-bit bus width memory. With a clock speed of 560MHz, this gives each chip a maximum memory bandwidth of around 18GB a second. This compares favorably with the 16GB/second memory bandwidth offered by the reference design.