XGI/Club3d Volari Duo V8 256mb Review

From an aesthetic perspective the V8 Duo is a beast of a card, its as long as Nvidias 5950U and features a large amount of cooling. On the front of the card has a large copper heat sink which houses 2 fans (each with blue led). The rear of the card is almost entirely covered by a large copper heatsink. Additionally there are several components on the front and back which are cooled by thick ramsinks. Seated at the rear of the card are the 2 molex sockets. The Volari requires a great deal of power and so youll need 2 free molex plugs and at least a 400w PSU.The thought of 2 molex plugs and a 400w PSU might make you baulk, it certainly wasnt a selling point for us however in the great scheme of things its not that big a dealthis is not the case however for the weight and volume of the card. Firstly the weight the V8 Duo is possibly the heaviest component that I have ever installed in a system. We raised the weight of the 5900ultra as a concern back when we tested Gainwards version and at that time we saw it as a negative, the Volari is most defiantly heavier than that. The amount of stress on my AGP port cant be a good thing and the fact that the Volari is a single slot solution means the card is only held in the case by 1 screw (rather than the geforces 2). Secondly the noise the cooling solution makes is actually louder than the FX flow, possibly on par with the FX flow on the 5800 Ultra. The down side of the Volari is that the noise is constant where as the Nvidia solution was only loud in 3d mode