Now, let’s say a few words about the card itself. The core of the NBOX kit is a standard FX5900U-VTD256 model based on NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900 Ultra:

The cooler located at the front side of the PCB covers both: the GPU and the memory chips. The air pumped in by the fan is then directed along the ribs of the heatsink that form a radial pattern. A layer of thermal paste helps to improve the thermal contact between the heatsink and the chips, which it is cooling.

It is often hard to make sure that a monolithic cooler like that sits tightly on all the chips. However, in our particular card, the cooler did press against each chip on the front panel quite nicely.

The backside cooler consists of two parts. One is responsible for taking the heat off the graphics memory chips, while the other does the same with the PCB spot right beneath the GPU. The contact to the PCB is achieved by means of a thick and stiff thermal pad:

I doubt this cooler makes a great contribution to the cooling of the graphics processor, though. Anyway, it is good because it produces an air stream to blow at the ribs of the heatsink installed on the memory chips:

It would be more useful if this heatsink had a little bit of thermal paste for better contact with the chips. As it is, it simply presses against them. Well, this is a minor drawback. The card works stably at its regular frequencies, and if you are into overclocking, you can find some paste. :)