Reviewed: June 12, 2005
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Manufacturer
Leadtek

Type: 3D Video Card

MSRP:: $399
Warranty: 3 Years

Rating: 9.7

What's in the box

  • WinFast PX6600 GT TDH graphics card
  • HDTV cable
  • DVI to VGA adapter
  • Software -- DVD Player
    -- WinFox II
    -- Cult 3D
    -- Coloreal Embedded
    -- Coloreal Visual
    -- Coloreal Bright
    -- Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (full)
    -- Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (full)

    System Requirements

  • Windows XP/2000
  • Minimum 300W System Power Supply
  • PCI Express Compliant Motherboard
  • Two spare molex power connectors
  • CD or DVD Drive
  • VGA or DVI-I Compatible Monitor

    Review System

  • AMD 64 4000+ Clawhammer
  • nForce 4 Motherboard
  • 3 GB PC3200 RAM
  • Windows XP Pro SP2
  • Western Digital Caviar 300GB SATA
  • SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS
  • DirectX 9.0c
  • Sony Multiscan W900 Monitor

    		•  THE HARDWARE

    This has to be one of the best hardware bundles ever put together. Leadtek hasn’t missed a thing, and you will probably find a few items in the box you won’t even know what to do with. They have provided every conceivable cable you might need to support all the features of the hardware and the software. The only thing they didn’t provide was a Phillips screwdriver to install the card.


    The Winfast PX6800 GT THD is stunning to behold, both in size and design. If you think it looks cool in that image above just wait until you remove this card from the box and feel the weight in the palm of your hand. Leadtek has enclosed much of the onboard chips inside a contained plastic cooling system with a large turbine-style fan to vent the excess heat this card will generate when cranking out those next-gen games. This revolutionary cooling system kept this card much cooler than any of the other 6800 series cards we tested including our reference card. The fan actually requires two of your internal power connectors and they even provide a special splitter to combine the two into one.

    The fan was surprisingly quiet and it's position in my case was perfectly match to my side panel fan for even better colling. The other fans on my system are louder than these so I have to take off the side panel to even hear the hum of the video cooling system. You can monitor the temperature of the card using the new Detonator drivers. When the card isn’t being taxed (like while writing this review) the GPU core temperature hovers at a steady 46 degrees Celsius. After 3-4 intense hours of Far Cry or my Doom 3 - the two most technologically demanding games I have at the moment, I’ve seen the temperature spike at 64 degrees Celsius. This is fairly impressive considering I am not overclocking the card and the core threshold is 120 Celsius.

    You’ll also want to take note of the extra length and width that will render one of your PCI slots (the one adjacent to the PCI-E slot) useless. This also makes the card tricky and even impossible to install in some motherboards, even some of the newer ones. Depending on your case size and hard drive bay placement, you might have problems there too. More on that in the Installation section.

    THE SOFTWARE BUNDLE

    Leadtek knows why gamers buy powerful video cards – to play demanding video games, and this card comes bundled with some of the best games from the past year. But they have targeted more than just the high-end gamer with this new card by giving you all the tools to build your own video editing studio. The PX6800 GT TDH comes with everything you need to record, edit, and author your own digital video.

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