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Unlike the reference GT240, which comes with single slot cooling, Gainward used a larger and more efficient cooling on its GT 240 1024MB D5 HDMI DVI Golden Sample. The following picture shows that the card is not quite as long as its name:
The PCB has been changed from Nvidia’s reference design, and while Gainward kept the 2+1 phase PWM, the power components have been moved around a bit. The card doesn’t feature power connector, meaning it won’t draw over 75W, which is supplied via the PCIe connector.
Gainward kept the red color for the PCB, and the black cooling as well as the “G” letter are becoming a tradition.
The cooler is very quiet, and the dual-slot width is probably the only flaw. The fan is about 8cm in diameter and is placed within the plastic bracket. The cooler base and fins are made of aluminum, and the picture below shows the cooler and the thermal paste prints.
The fan is connected via two wires, but there’s no reason to panic as speed regulation is easy to do via ExpertTool 7.6 found on the CD. Still, the Dynamic operation mode worked great and the cooler was pretty quiet.
As we already mentioned, Gainward opted on GDDR5 memory. Note that graphics cards with 128-bit memory interface greatly benefit from GDDR5 as it provides superior bandwidth to that with GDDR3 memory. The memory in question is Samsung K4G10325FE–HC05, 0.50ns (4.0Gbps).
The card features a total of 8 memory modules, 4 on each side of the PCB. The memory didn’t require any additional cooling, although the memory on the front is cooled by the air coming from the fan.
The picture below shows the back of the card, where you’ll find 512MB of GDDR5 from the total 1024MB.
The card is almost 17cm long, which is still miniscule compared to the Radeon HD 5970’s 31cm. Gainward offers standard connectors found on most GT 240 cards – HDMI, DVI and VGA.
Just like the card, the packaging is pretty small as well. Within the box you’ll find the graphics card, driver CD with ExpertTool overclocking tool and a short installation manual.
