Gainward Ti4800SE

Impression

The entire series of Gainward video cards come with a 3 year warranty. Gainward has always been one of the more efficient companies at getting RMA’s processed and turned around. So if the card happens to malfunction while you own it, Gainward should be able to get it squared away. The Gainward box is simple but gives you the information that you need. The only thing I saw lacking on the box was the warranty. As we have said before, the box has no impact on the review.

The bundle that came with the Gainward Ultra/750-8X XP was adequate, but nothing found to be above and beyond what other companies are putting together. It comes with the trusty Quick Start Manual, a case badge, a DVI connector, a Video-In & Video-Out cable, a driver cd, Win Cinema software, and the game Serious Sam. The above photo shows the entire bundle that comes with the card.

The connection interface found on the Gainward Ultra/750-8X XP is pretty much standard with the VGA, DVI, and VIVO connections. Also, another connection that can be used on the card is the firewire connection which is located on the top of the video card. This can be better shown on the above right photo.

The red PCB and the heatsinks on this card really stand out and will help brighten up even the dullest cases! Gainward includes memory heatsinks, which I believe serve no purpose for normal use, but can greatly aid in overclocking with correctly implemented case cooling. If you are buying the retail version in the states you will be getting Samsung 3.3ns memory, whereas if you purchase the OEM (White Box) version you will be getting Hynix 3.5ns memory modules. The card we are testing came is the retail version and came with Samsung 3.3ns memory modules. Overall the Gainward GPU cooling solution is along the lines of standard and is fairly silent in operation.

When we removed the heatsink from the card, we found that the GPU had a very light layer of thermal compound applied. Once the top cover was taken off the heatsink, one can observe that the sink is from a single mold and is made out of aluminum. We will see how well this cooling solution works in our overclocking section.

The above left photo is of the core after the compound was removed. An interesting fact to note is that Gainward recently switched to Sanyo capacitors. We have been told that the Sanyo capacitors aid in the performance of the card, and more stability can be expected with them. The above right photo shows the new Sanyo capacitors found on our card.

Now that you have the basic understanding of the card, we can go ahead and see how it performs