eVGA e-GeForce 6800GT PCI-E

Examination:

Giving the eVGA 6800GT a look over, its appearance and layout is a near replica of NVIDIA's GeForce 6800GT reference design. To start, the 6800GT utilizes two DVI monitor outputs and one S-Video out connection. Examining the eVGA heatsink, the only noticeable differences between that and the reference model is the eVGA sticker found on the motor housing of the fan. The black anodized aluminum covers the GPU and the Samsung GDDR3 memory modules, while on the visible side is a sticker of the GeForce 6 series and the beautiful Nalu, along with another smaller heatsink covering the power regulators. On the opposing side of the PCB is the GPU heatsink back plate. The 6800GT heatsink does a fair job at keeping the entire video unit cool, and we'll discuss the cooling more in-depth in the overclocking section.

As with all of NVIDIA's GeForce 6800GT PCI-E board partners, the eVGA e-GeForce 6800GT is SLI certified. However, we will not be delivering any SLI results in this review, due to the availability of Linux SLI 1.0-8XXX drivers that shall come out later this month. At the end of the PCB is the 6-pin PCI Express power connector. Although this isn't much of a concern if you have a recent power supply that is able to provide enough power to the graphics card and the appropriate connection, eVGA bundles a PCI Express power connector to combine two 4-pin molex connectors. Examining several stickers on the graphics card as well as looking over the PCB itself, the eVGA card was manufactured in China with a part number of 256-P2-N376-AX and the loaded video BIOS version is 5.40.02.36.08.

For comparison purposes, below is the eVGA 6800GT 256MB, Gigabyte 6600GT 128MB (GV-NX66T128D), and a Leadtek WinFast PX7800GTX 256MB. Later on in this review, we'll be comparing the performance of these three PCI Express cards.