Leadtek doesn't need much of an introduction as they were among the first manufacturers to produce GeForce2 and GeForce3 based cards. When a new NVIDIA chipset has been launched, you can bet that Leadtek will be there manufacturing boards to be among the first available to market. They have been synonymous with quality since the inception of their WinFast lineup.

Lately they've received quite a bit of flak due in part to the below-average overclocking speeds owners of the cards were capable of squeezing out of the 3.8ns rated DDR RAM. Most of the blame fell upon the aesthetically beautiful, yet underperforming flat silver RAM sinks. The reason heatsinks are necessary is that they add additional surface area which allows a greater amount of air to come in contact with the surface. Yet, their heatsinks were flat, adding little extra surface area to the memory modules.

Besides that fact, most reviewers hailed the WinFast GeForce3 TD as yet another quality component. The card was bundled with a few games as well as TV-out and DVI-out, hence the TD extension. However, Leadtek has kept a close ear to customer complaints and have released an updated revision of the WinFast GeForce3.

Leadtek WinFast GeForce3 TDH

Enter the TDH:

The new TDH revision features the largest GPU/RAM heatsink available from any manufacturer. And this time there's fins and TONS OF THEM! :)

Some must be wondering why Leadtek has added the "H" extension to the previous TD. The "H" stands for Hardware Monitoring. We'll get into the details of this feature a little later on in the review.

A couple more shots of the board from various angles:

Leadtek states that the PCB's layout is a unique design, yet careful comparison with my eVGA e-GeForce3 card leads me to believe that they haven't deviated too much from NVIDIA's reference design. I didn't remove the heatsink, so some changes may appear there, hidden from view. Most manufacturers use the reference design as it has proven to be a very stable and versatile solution allowing optional features such as TV-out and DVI-out support. The only other aspect in which these cards are different is the eVGA's TV-out chip is located on a daughter-board, whereas Leadtek's is right on the board's PCB.

The card is slightly wider than eVGA's GeForce3, but much heavier due to the additional weight of the large heatsinks. Leadtek's GeForce3 also features TV-out and DVI-out. But what's so special about this? We'll see...

Next Page: What's Included & Unique Features