KFA2 GeForce GTX 480 Anarchy review - Introduction

KFA2 GeForce GTX 480 LTD OC gets tested

When NVIDIA's high-end GeForce GTX 480 graphics card was released earlier this year, everybody agreed on the fact that it really is a very fast card. But unfortunately in it's reference design the product has three negatives, first and foremost the high TDP (peak power consumption), the high temperatures the GPU reaches and thirdly the sheer noise levels. Now, I've always stated that if NVIDIA would have addressed the noise and heat levels from the very beginning, everybody would have certainly been more forgiving towards this product series.

Many months passed and nothing really changed from camp NVIDIA on that GeForce GTX 480 design and as a result, it is simply put, not a popular card due to the aforementioned reasons. We honestly expected a respin with better cooling.

So when we first started reviewing liquid cooled versions of this card, it literally blew me personally, the difference is tremendous in terms of noise and heat levels. And as expected quite a lot of you that went for the GTX 480 also went for a LCS solution. The very same consumers can live with that 250W TDP of this card as the better cooling takes away a lot of sorrow.

There's a problem though, a lot of people are afraid of liquid cooling solutions, as they hate to have some sort of H2O based coolant inside their electrified PC. Others just feel that investing that much money on so much cooling is just not an option, which is a fair assumption as well.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. Roughly half a year after the introduction, the first custom air cooled GeForce GTX 480 cards arrive on the market. One of NVIDIA's AIBs KFA2 immediately cocked their gun when Arctic Cooling, or just 'Arctic' these days, released their  Acelero Xtreme Plus cooler. A massive three slot cooler with three 90mm fans capable of disposing 250W heat from the graphics card. It really is exactly what the doctor ordered as this is the very first cooler that can keep any GeForce GTX, factory overclocked, at roughly 50 to 55 Degrees C when fully stressed.

And you know what we say about that: British accent: "Loveleeeeeeh". The cooler is so good that it completely humps the GeForce GTX 480 doin' it doggy style.

KFA2 then, the KFA2 brand is predominantly active in the European market and over the past months have released a new series of NVIDIA graphics cards in Europe under the label KFA2  “Kick Friggin Ass”. KFA2 is a premium line of graphics cards.

KFA2 is the European premium brand of Galaxy, nothing to hide, proud to be a part of it.

Our aim is to be the extreme version of the already well established, tried and tested manufacturing facility that for over 16 years has produced cards for a number of graphics companies and now has its own brand.

KFA2 exists for 2 main reasons:

1. To bring the best quality and performing products to market
2. KFA2 is going to “Kick Friggin Ass” and take names later!

KFA is a sole European focused brand, providing European based support, warehousing and RMA facilities. Our primary goal is to provide products based upon two key elements "Performance and Quality" with peace of mind, knowing that all support related services are located within Europe.

Why we are different?

• We produce and manufacture our own Graphics Cards
• We only use non-reference fans and non-reference PCB’s
• Overclocked products as standard offering
• European only brand
• European Support Facilities
• Backed by GALAXY who have been established since 1994.

The KFA2 GeForce GTX 480 LTD OC Anarchy as presented today falls within their Anarchy series graphics cards, the card is pre (factory) overclocked for you at 760 MHz on the core, 1520 on the shader processors and its memory is bumped towards 3800 MHz (effective). In this baseline configuration the card barely touches 55 Degrees C when fully stressed, while operating at very normal noise levels. It doesn't stop there though, thanks to the superb cooling we will take the product towards 900 MHz whilst remaining under 65 Degrees C at normal noise levels.

Aaah, now I got your attention, didn't I dear Watson ? Next page please, where we'll startup riots, havoc, turmoil, mayhem, and Anarchy.