Gainward’s Phantom GTX 680 Is Official

Video card company Gainward has finally announced its Phantom version of the GeForce GTX 680 on its official website. This is a dual-fan custom-cooled beauty that will make the insides of your PC look good.

The card is heavily factory overclocked as its GPU base clock is rated at 1085 MHz, 7.7 percent up from the NVIDIA default reference clock of 1006 MHz. The ‘Boost Clock’ is set up at 1150 MHz, that’s 8.7 percent higher than the standard 1058 MHz ‘Boost.’

The GDDR5 memory is also clocked higher than the 6 GHz reference speed and is rated at 6.3 GHz, being 5 percent faster. 

All of this overclocking is fueled with ‘clean’ power coming from the 6-phase PWM. The card has 2 extra phases to help enthusiasts get even better overclocks than the one the card originally comes with.

Gainward says that its design ensures lower energy loss, a lower EMI level and higher stability under high current operation (operating under heavy loading). Moreover, the GTX 680 Phantom uses DrMOS components for powering the GPU.

They say the new Phantom II cooler design has a brand new fins design (patent pending), thus offering better thermal performance, lower acoustic level and, generally, a more solid structure than previous generations.

Five heatpipes ensure good heat transfer from the GPU to the heat sink fins and they're likely 6 millimeter ones.

The dual-fan three-slot Phantom II cooler gets Gainward GTX 680 Phantom a 7.8 decibels quieter operation or 60% lower than reference board under 2D operation or idle mode.

Thanks to the new cooler design, Gainward GTX 680 Phantom, even with factory overclocked chips, manifests a 6 degrees Celsius lower GPU temperature than reference board, with reference clocks as well as 11.5 decibels lower acoustics level in full-load mode of operation.

The card comes with 4 ports on the back side: DVI-I, DVI-D, HDMI 1.4a, DisplayPort. There’s no word on pricing yet.

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