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The Card:

Oh how we lament the passing of non reference design cards. The 5700 is not a bad reference design as it is not a dual slot solution like the 5950, albeit it is on the long side. The Gigabyte is based on the reference 5700 but there are a few visual differences including the trademark blue Gigabyte PCB as well as their own heatsink/fan.

As you can see from the pictures above, Gigabyte installed their own golden heatsink. The heatsink is actually smaller than the one on the reference card, but we did not find any performance or overclocking difference. From the looks of the heatsink, it seems as though the reference card is heavier, but they are actually the same weight. Like the 5700 reference card, the heatsinks cover the memory modules so we cannot see what kind of memory chips that Gigabyte utilizes. With the <a href="http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/gr96xt/index.html">9600 XT</a>, Gigabyte used 350 Mhz memory instead of the default 300 Mhz found on ATI reference cards.

The 5700 Ultra requires a 4 pin-molex for additional power, so prepare to give some extra power to this card. A molex splitter is included so that an empty molex is not necessary. Another difference is the gold plating on the Gigabyte PCI bracket, while the nVidia card has the plain old silver.