14 DAY TRIAL // Vvikoo has just unveiled an interesting model of graphics card based on Nvidia's 9600 GT graphics core. If you haven't heard of Vvikoo by now, don't panic, as the manufacturer is playing on the consumer-level graphics market.
While top-tier manufacturers are the first to grab the newly-released graphics chips, Vvikkoo comes late to the party, but it aims at impressing its customers with daring designs that have not seen daylight before.
The 9600GT Turbo model from Vvikkoo comes with an Nvidia GPU clocked at 700MHz and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at core speeds of 2,000MHz. The card also sports a 256-bit memory bus, PCI-Express 2.0, and comes with full support for both DirectX 10 and Shader Model 4.0. The hardware specifications are pretty standard for the entire 9600GT lineup, and the only point of interest is the Zalman cooler covering the biggest part of the component side.
The cooler forced Vvikoo to adopt a dual-slot design, and since the backplates offer plenty of free space, the manufacturer stuffed them with a plethora of connectors, including HDMI, DisplayPort, dual-link / dual-DVI ports, and an SPDIF connector for digital audio. The cooler does not come into contact with any of the memory modules onboard, but Vvikoo claims that there will be no overheating issues.
Given the fact that it is mostly covered in copper, the graphics card weighs significantly above the average, and it puts a lot of pressure onto the PCI-Express port, so it has to be firmly secured using the slot screw.
Vvikoo's GeForce 9600 GT Turbo is already on the market, but there are only a few retailers carrying the brand. It can be purchased (if found) for about $391.83, which is not bad for a "designer" piece of hardware.