NVIDIA GeForce2/3 Titanium Roundup - January 2002

Leadtek WinFast Titanium TH

Leadtek WinFast Titanium TH
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GPU	NVIDIA GeForce2 Ti 200
Memory	64MB Samsung DDR SGRAM 4.0ns
Cooling - Core	Side cooling heatsink/fan combo
Cooling - Memory	N/A
Temperature - Core	127 F / 52.8C
TV-Out	Chrontel CH7007A
Video-In	N/A
Highest Overclock	295/505 MHz
Software/Gaming Bundle	Dronez, Gunlock, and WinFast DVD
Average Online Price	$115
Click here to buy the WinFast Titanium TH.

The Leadtek WinFast Titanium TH features a unique cooling solution that we have not seen before on a stock video card. Rather than build a heatsink, cut out the middle, and place a fan in the center, Leadtek chose to place the fan unit on the side. This way, air is forced across the larger heatsink by the side mounted fan. This is similar to the cooling solutions employed on some 1U servers, as the space requirements do not allow for a stacked fan/heatsink unit. It is too bad that the cooling solution did not fare too well in our tests even though it is bonded to the core via thermal grease. The core of the Leadtek WinFast Titanium TH reached 127 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest of all GeForce2 Ti 200 cards we tested by 5 degrees.

The memory solution on the Leadtek WinFast Titanium TH is also unique. Rather than use the conventional SDRAM chips, the Leadtek WinFast Titanium TH uses 4.0ns SGRAM chips. The last cards we saw use SGRAM were GeForce256 cards, as manufacturers quickly transitioned from SGRAM to SDRAM because of higher yields. As you may recall, SGRAM chips were designed specifically for graphics applications but real-world performance differences between SDRAM and SGRAM were nonexistent. The lack of memory cooling on the Leadtek WinFast Titanium TH did not set us back at all when overclocking, as the memory clock on the card was able to hit the same level that other GeForce2 Ti 200 cards were able to.

In addition to TV-out powered by a Chrontel CH7007A chip, Leadtek WinFast Titanium TH also features hardware monitoring curtsey of Winbond W83601R and W83783S hardware monitoring chips. Temperature, fan speed, and voltages are all monitored via the Winbond W83783S chip, while the W83601R takes care of lighting up the diagnostic LEDs that lie on the top right of the board. Being big fans of as much information we can get, we love hardware monitoring on video cards.