Wireless Graphics card - KFA2 GTX 460 WDHI review - Introduction

Sometimes in this industry you see products that ooze innovation. Now by any given standard that does not always mean brilliant ideas, but yeah ... innovation and differentiation is always downright interesting at the very least. One innovative product that dropped like a bomb into the market a couple of weeks ago is the KFA2/Galaxy GeForce GTX 460 WHDI with the card transmitting a wireless signal to your HDTV. An idea that originates from Intel actually, as they also have WHDI solutions these days.

But think about it ... a graphics card with no monitor connectors attached to it, yet when you look at the HDTV you see your desktop in 1920x1080P perfectly clear and fine, all transmitted through the air. Duuuude -- that's like Star Trek for real -- I mean 1920x1080 is 2 million pixels at 32-bit with 60 refreshes each second as well.

The concept surely is miraculous and even weirder, it works surprisingly well !

Yep, today we test a GeForce GTX 460 based on that concept, all that hardware lovin' is based and placed onto custom PCB design, the card is silent and highly overclockable offering very nice mid-range performance. And within a distance of 100 feet / 33 Meters you can beam a 1080P signal towards a television or monitor, as long as it has an HDMI input, you should be good to go really.

It does that by placing a 5 GHz band wireless receiver/transmitter onto the graphics card which and when we looked at it first, we felt that the sheer looks resemble the facehugger from the movie Aliens, what ya don't believe me ? Hah .. you better look at the photo below the fold my man.

Anyway, the wireless signal is transmitted towards a small receiver box that feeds of a 5V adapter and plugs in directly into your HDTV through an HDMI connector.

When you think of it, it could be a brilliant idea for business presentations but even more so home usage, with the PC too far away from your scrumptious and luscious 1080P telly you can connect it and then game with friends or watch pictures and a nice movie in 1080P without the need to have a fully blown HTPC next to your telly.

Of course the demographic for a card like this is small, but for a small selection of you guys it might be the solution for a problem we didn't know existed ... handy wireless monitor connectivity.

Well, I've just threw up all hints and downright weird puns towards the product we test today, meet the KFA2 (Galaxy) GTX 460 WHDI, head on over to the next page where we'll startup the review.

Oh and come on ... am I the only one seeing the facehugger resemblance from Alien in there ?