Thermaltake Extreme Giant III

Well, I am a little disappointed with the Giant III; I couldn’t manage to get any more performance out of the GF3 with it installed. I did manage to get another 5 MHz on the GPU and the Memory for a 280/580 clock. The gain in performance was minimal. I got a whole 24 points more. Perhaps I’ve just reached the limits of this particular card.

Temperatures remained relatively the same with either card cooling solution in place. The GF3 has no onboard monitoring capabilities so I had to place a sensor to monitor the temperatures near the card and not on it.

The included fan controller has 4 basic settings. For the main fan it has a high, medium and a low. The blower is either on or off. For the testing I turned the two fans up to full speed. The main fan at high speed is not very loud and I couldn’t really hear it over the other fans in my case. The Blower isn’t really loud, but it does have a very high pitched whine. It’s not too bad when you’re playing a game and I tend to not really hear it unless I try to. However, during the benching with no other sounds it quickly becomes annoying. The placement behind the case of the controller switches is a drawback. If you can’t see what you’re doing it makes it tough. The switches are very positive though. They click into place firmly, so changing speeds by feel isn’t really too difficult.

Maximum Overclock Speed: 280 MHz GPU Core/ 580 MHz Memory

Overall the Thermaltake Giant III is a very good product. Its looks are outstanding. If you have a windowed case it’ll definitely help make it look good. Would I buy one? Probably not. I can get a CORB that will do basically the same thing for a lot less money. I also don’t use windowed cases; I go for functionality over looks and just have never seen the need for windows.

Pros:

• Looks Good
• Performs well
• Installs easily (took about 30 minutes)

Cons:

• Fan Controller placement
• High pitched whine of the blower fan
• Size (huge, and as with most aftermarket GPU coolers you lose a PCI slot)