SLI a liquido per Gainward

Tra i produttori partner produttivi di NVIDIA, Gainward è ben noto per essere quello che studia e propone le soluzioni tecniche più originali e per certi versi eccentriche.
E' sicuramente questo il caso della scheda GainwardCoolFXTM PowerPack! TMModel Ultra/2600 PCX “Golden Sample”SLI, nome lunghissimo scelto per un setup SLI con schede GeForce 6800 Ultra, dotato di sistema di raffreddamento a liquido integrato.

Come si nota chiaramente dallo schema, il setup viene venduto ad un costo di circa 1.700€, cifra che comprende due schede video GeForce 6800 Ultra con clock di 450 MHz per il chip video e 1,2 GHz per la memoria GDDR3. Oltre a questo, Gainward include nel kit il waterblock e tutto l'occorrente per raffreddare a liquido le due schede, compresa pompa, vaschetta per liquido e tubi.

Di seguito è riportato il comunicato stampa rilasciato da Gainward:

Gainward CoolFXTM PowerPack!TM Ultra/2600PCX “Golden Sample”TM SLI-ready

Selected nVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra GPU, 256 MB of carefully qualified 1,6 ns/1,2 GHz high performance DDR3, integrated Gainward CoolFX water cooling for SLI operation
Cooperation with Innovatek, first water cooled SLI systems from ARLT Computer

Taipei – Beijing – Hong Kong – Munich – London – Malmö – Moscow – January 25th, 2005.

Gainward Co., Ltd., the leading manufacturer of high performance 3D graphics and home entertainment accelerators, announces that it will be first to market with the world’s most powerful 3D graphics processor board configuration for the PCI-E bus integrating two water-cooled NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra boards running in SLI mode.
Each of the two Gainward CoolFX PowerPack! Ultra/2600 PCX “Golden Sample”TM 3D processor boards features a hand selected GeForce 6800 Ultra GPU running at 450Plus MHz core clock, 256 MB of carefully qualified 1.2 GHz DDR3, video-out, dual DVI, plus integrated Gainward CoolFXTM water cooling.

The Gainward CoolFX PowerPack! Ultra/2600 PCX “Golden Sample”TM can also work “SLI-ready” as a single slot configuration to be upgraded with a second board for SLI operation later.
The Gainward CoolFX PowerPack! Ultra/2600 PCX “Golden Sample”TM is available starting early March 2005 through Gainward’s worldwide distribution and retail network and is priced at € 899 incl. VAT. Gainward will also offer the Gainward CoolFX PowerPack! Ultra/2600 PCX “Golden Sample”TM SLI configuration with two CoolFX PowerPack! Ultra/2600 PCX “Golden Sample”TM boards in a single retail box priced at € 1699 incl. VAT.

„Especially for high-performing SLI configurations consuming over 400 Watts of power air cooling is either inefficient, noisy, or both, whilst Gainward CoolFXTM water cooling is around 25 times more efficient and almost silent”, commented Hans-Wolfram Tismer, Managing Director of Gainward Europe. „The advantages of Gainward CoolFXTM are increased 3D performance at 50 - 150 MHz higher clock speeds and quiet operation targeting the 3D enthusiasts as well as professionals seeking a noiseless solution for their work place.”

In order to offer today’s most reliable and long lasting water cooling solution Gainward has partnered with innovatek, today’s leading manufacturer of liquid cooling solutions, based in Stammham, Germany.

„innovatek are manufacturing high-quality products that fit our needs extremely well", says Hans-Wolfram Tismer, Managing Director of Gainward Europe. “As innovatek have been in this business since the beginning of "retail" water cooling they have a great deal of experience and we are proud to have them as a partner.”

„To meet the requirements of the leading manufacturer of high performance 3D graphics and home entertainment accelerators is a great challenge for us", says Markus Husterer, Managing Director of innovatek OS GmbH. "As pioneers of the whole H2O movement we are sure that this co-operation is another important step on the way of bringing the benefits of water cooling to every user."

The first completely water-cooled, NVIDIA-certified computer systems featuring a Gainward CoolFX PowerPack! Ultra/2600 PCX “Golden Sample”TM SLI configuration will soon be available from Arlt Computer Produkte GmbH, Hindenburgstraße 8, 71106 Magstadt (Kontakt: Oliver Seeger, 07159 457 – 181, oseeger@arlt.com).

Gainward CoolFXTM is based on a revolutionary design featuring the world’s most reliable Eheim water pump with an average 10 years life span, while conventional lower cost solutions are using lower quality water fountain pumps which may not even survive the mandatory European warranty period of two years. Equipped with a performance radiator and a 120 mm low noise fan, Gainward CoolFXTM can be extended with the Gainward CoolPCTM upgrade kit to also cool down the CPU (Intel or AMD) and the North Bridge to almost room temperature. In order to avoid any leakages and water evaporation through the pipe system Gainward is using special plastic pipes and fittings to connect all components into a sealed water circulation system.

With nViewä Display Technology the Gainward CoolFX PowerPack! Ultra/2600 PCX “Golden Sample”TM also supports two monitors simultaneously with two independent 400 MHz RAMDACs for office applications, 3D gaming and professional applications such as CAD, DTP, animation, or video editing. The maximum supported resolution for both displays is 2048 x 1536 @ 85Hz. Depending on the resolution the maximum refresh rate is up to 240 Hz. The integrated NTSC/PAL TV encoder supports resolutions up to 1024x768 without the need for panning with built-in Macrovision copy protection.

EXPERToolTM is Gainward’s performance tuning utility that allows the user to easily adjust the engine clock and the memory clock of any Gainward product from NVIDIA’s recommended default settings to even faster settings. Thanks to Gainward’s proprietary, rock solid, multi-layer High-Performance/Wide-BandwidthTM hardware design, Gainward offers the end user the choice to run Gainward’s “Golden Sample” products at ”Enhanced Performance Settings” (both, faster engine clock AND faster memory clock) which guarantee significantly improved “3D real-world performance” for even higher resolutions at 32 bit color depth.