WinFast A380 Ultra TDH MyVIVO card

Like the WinFast A360 Ultra TDH, the WinFast A380 Ultra TDH MyVIVO is based entirely on NVIDIA’s reference design, right down to the Philips SAA7108AE video enconder chip. After all, if you’re going to pay roughly $500 for a graphics card, it should be capable of doing it all right?

Leadtek's WinFast A380 Ultra TDH MyVIVO

The back of the card

Leadtek’s new cooler, dubbed Air Surround, deviates significantly from NVIDIA’s stock cooling unit. Whereas the NVIDIA cooler used on a lot of third-party boards features a large blower-style cooling fan that’s enclosed inside a duct, Leadtek’s unit is more contained.

Air Surround cooling

Heatsink has rolled copper fins

Profile comparison of the coolers

The beauty of the NVIDIA cooler is that its fan acts as an intake vent that draws in cool air from outside the PC’s case. It accomplishes this by occupying the PCI slot adjacent to the AGP interface. This cool air is drawn in by the fan, which is offset of the graphics core for increased effectiveness; airflow is contained within a plastic duct, further increasing efficiency. The air then passes over the graphics core, which is cooled by a thick heatsink with multiple fins. Finally, the air exits out the right side of the cooler, right where the duct ends.

The cooling system on the WinFast A380 Ultra TDH MyVIVO is also based on an intake design, but it draws in air that’s within the PC’s case. This air is usually warmer than the air outside the case, so the NVIDIA cooling unit potentially has a cooler supply of air coming in contact with the core. This advantage will be even more pronounced in cramped, hotter cases. Fortunately most enthusiasts that purchase cards like the WinFast A380 Ultra TDH know the importance of having good case ventilation – it isn’t hard to find cases with good airflow.

One advantage the Leadtek cooler has over the NVIDIA unit however is its extensive use of copper. Leadtek places a large copper plate over the graphics core and DDR memory. Rolled fins are then attached to the plate, further increasing surface area. Leadtek must feel that copper’s superior thermal characteristics offset the disadvantages of a one-piece design, it also helps that the DDR modules don’t get quite as hot as DDR2. On the underside of the card, a large aluminum heatsink cools the bottom of the graphics core and memory modules, which is the same philosophy NVIDIA uses for its stock cooler, although the shapes of the two heatsinks are different.

As far as performance, Leadtek’s WinFast A380 Ultra TDH cooler was slightly cooler than the standard cooling unit on the eVGA 5950 Ultra card. We recorded idle temperatures as low as 39 degrees Celsius for the Leadtek card versus 40 degrees for the eVGA. Under load (non-overclocked) temperatures peaked up to 55 degrees for the eVGA, whereas the Leadtek’s peak after running the same number of iterations of 3DMark 03 was 53 degrees Celsius. We’d attribute the superior Leadtek numbers to the use of copper rather than aluminum on the regular GeForce FX card. The fact that we’re testing in an open-air environment with a fresh (and plentiful) supply of cool air negates the NVIDIA reference cooler’s potential advantage.

The GeForce FX 5950 Ultra is naturally a step up from the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra and other mainstream cards in terms of noise level, that’s to be expected with any high-end card, whether from ATI or NVIDIA. We would not classify the WinFast A380 Ultra TDH as “loud” but when you’re coming from a mainstream or DX8-level card like the GeForce4 or RADEON 8500, the WinFast A380 Ultra TDH will be louder than what you’re used to once it cranks up into 3D mode: just as its become natural to expect a high-end card to require an external power source, also accept that it will run a little bit louder. With that said, audibly the WinFast A380 Ultra TDH is slightly louder than NVIDIA’s reference cooling unit. NVIDIA’s blower style fan runs at lower RPMs than the Leadtek fan which is of a conventional design, we attribute this to the higher noise output. The WinFast A380 Ultra TDH is quieter than its predecessor however.

Note the orientation of the power connector

DVI transmitter and TV encoder

MyVIVO cable with HDTV outputs

Leadtek protects the fan from dust with a dust filter. We mentioned the benefits of an integrated dust filter on the previous page, so we won’t rehash them again here. Leadtek adds one other added bonus in the board design of the WinFast A380 Ultra TDH: the power connector is placed parallel to the edge of the PCB! This saves a little bit of cable space during installation. We don’t know why NVIDIA hasn’t made this subtle change on its own reference design.

The final goodie Leadtek includes in the packaging that we really like is the component video cable (YPrPb). This is perfect for those of you with an HDTV; you can hook the Leadtek board right up to it! The WinFast A380 Ultra TDH is the first GeForce FX card of any nature to ship with this feature that we’re aware of.