Card appearance
Please head on over to our architecture look to see how the GeForce 9800 GT is positioned amongst its peers.
Inno3D's GeForce 9800 GT iChiLL clearly doesn't follow the reference design. The most obvious difference is the use of an uprated cooler - Arctic Cooling's Accelero Twin Turbo - which should keep temperatures and noise levels low.
Additionally, Inno3D has raised the clockspeeds over the reference design, with the core jumping from the reference 600MHz to 700MHz (a 16.66% increase), and the 512MB of GDDR3 increased from 1,800MHz to 2,000MHz (11.1% increase). The 112 shaders clock remains unchanged over the reference design, running at 1,500MHz, however.
The rear of the card looks pretty plain: the most significant feature to note is the single SLI connector - allowing two-card SLI.
Viewing the card from a slight angle makes the four copper heatpipes a little clearer. The cooler features 30 aluminium fins to dissipate the GPUs heat, assisted by two quiet 80mm fans.
Viewing directly from the side, the depth of the cooler becomes apparent, and you should expect three expansion-slots to be occupied when installed.
Looking from the top you can see the copper heatpipes emerge.
You can also see the sleeved fan wires. There are two tails, with one plugged into the card's fan header and the other sitting loose. However, both fans are powered from the one connection, and it we noted that the two fans didn't spin at the same speed on our sample, with the fan closer to the rear of the case spinning visibly slower.
A single six-pin PCIe power connector is required to power the card, lending pictorial weight to its mid-range characteristics.
Two gold-plated dual-link DVI ports, and a TV-out provide display connections.
Notice, though, how the cooler sits at a slight angle?
Component, Composite and VGA outputs are available using the bundled adapters.
