Noise and Thoughts
Noise
If there's one thing that may worry you from the look of these two boards, it'll probably be the noise that the cooling solution might generate. But, fear not, for despite its fearsome looks both of these offerings are impressively quiet, and certainly not particularly noticeable over the usual noise of CPU and PSU fans. Kudos to Leadtek for combined effective cooling with a reasonably quiet solution.Thoughts
At the end of the day, buying any 6800GT or Ultra-based product is a guarantee of high performance, regardless of manufacturer. Thus, it takes something special to differentiate boards from the crowd, and the two Leadtek offerings on show here today have such special qualities from several angles.
The most obvious selling point of these two WinFast A400 boards is the cooling solution. Not only does it look the part, but it's quiet and extremely effective too. Both the GT and Ultra variants we've looked at have exhibited impressive overclocks, and the A400 GT is almost irresistible when you look at the potential headroom in both core and RAM clocks.
Away from raw performance, both of these boards come with an impressive bundle of games - Of course, as with all software bundles they may be titles you own, but if not you'll be chuffed to bits with what's on offer. Finally, anyone eyeing up the A400 Ultra will find themselves with dual DVI support, a feature being increasingly called for these days.
So, if you want a high-end 6800 that will overclock well on stock
cooling, Leadtek's offerings are an almost must-have purchase.
Even at stock speeds, you'll be wanting to consider the tempting bundle
and inclusion of dual DVI on the Ultra board, there really is something
on offer for most buyers in this price range here.
Score
Pros
Good software bundleGreat styling
Dual DVI for the Ultra model
Top-class performance
Plenty of overclocking potential