Introduction

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 260 has been on the market for quite a while. Now that NVIDIA's board partners are free to come up with their own interpretations of the reference design there is a large number of new cards appearing on the market that offer additional features or higher performance. Inno3D has teamed up with well known cooling manufacturer Arctic Cooling to deliver a solution that offers less fan noise while increasing the performance by overclocking out of the box.

Packaging & Contents

The iChill GTX 260 package clearly communicates all important product specifications on the front of the package. This will make it much easier for potential buyers to identify the product of their choice.



You will receive:

• Graphics card
• Documentation + Driver CD
• Far Cry 2 full game + Warmonger full game + NVIDIA 10% off games coupon
• PCI-E Power Cable
• DVI Adapter
• TV Out cables

The Card

Arctic Cooling's Accelero XXX is one big mother of a cooler featuring three cooling fans that cover most of the card. The cool actually extends a bit beyond the end of the PCB. Due to the height of the cooler the card will require three cooling slots in your system which could become a limitation when you plan on going SLI. Unfortunately the back of the card is not cooled at all.


The card has two DVI ports, which is the standard output configuration nowadays. In case you need an analog VGA output, you can use a DVI adapter (included). In case you want to connect your big digital TV screen, you can use the included HDMI adapter. The HDCP output features the usual HDCP+Audio, which allows easy setup of a media PC. For HDMI Audio, NVIDIA requires you to feed an external audio source, for example from your motherboard's on-board audio, to the card via SPDIF cable (also included). AMD on the other hand has integrated a sound device inside their GPUs which is the easier solution for most users.



Here are the front and the back of the cards, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.

A Closer Look

Arctic's large cooler is a complex maze of heatpipes and cooling fins with a copper core for optimum heat transfer.


A smaller rectangular heatsink covers the NVIO chip. When you remove it make sure you don't lose the little white plastic spacers.


The voltage regulator circuitry is cooled by this small metal plate. It is just glued on, yet is fairly easy to remove. However, after removing it several times the sticky thermal tape loses effectiveness I would have liked it if there was at least one screw fixing it to the card.


You may combine two or more of these cards to build an SLI rig for even higher performance or image quality settings.


The card has two six-pin power connectors, both are required for operation of the card. Further to the right on the picture is the white input for the SPDIF audio to be streamed into the HDMI output.


The GDDR3 memory chips are made by Samsung and carry the model number K4J52324QH-H1A. With a latency of 1.0 ns, they are specified to run at 1000 MHz. Please note that neither the memory modules on the back or on the front are cooled by a heatsink, only the airflow from the cooler on the front reduces temperatures.


Inno3D has chosen to stick with the Volterra VT1165 MF voltage regulator which means that software can adjust the voltages of your card. Which is a great feature for overclockers.


NVIDIA has separated the display output logic from the GPU on the latest chips. So in order to drive the display outputs the NVIO chip is required.


Here you can see the GT200 GPU that powers the GTX 260. It is made in a 65 nm process with 1.4 billion transistors. While there is also a 55 nm GT200b available it is not needed here. The card runs at comfortably cool temperatures and modest power draw.