Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro GeForce DDR

The way that the heatsink is pressed against the GPU makes for huge differences in overclocking potential. Normally, we would consider using thermal glue to attach a heatsink and fan to the GeForce GPU an inefficient method of heat dispersion. Thermal grease is usually preferred as the cooling compound of choice due to its high heat transfer rate. Thermal glue, as we have found in the past, tends to trap the heat more, thus resulting in a card that is not as overclockable. The 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro, which uses thermal glue to hold the heatsink onto the GPU, threw our normal conventions askew. With its low profile generic fan and heatsink attached to the GeForce processor with thermal glue, the 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro was able to reach an unparalleled speed of 160 MHz in the core.

The results of overclocking the 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro are quite unprecedented, not only for cards using thermal glue but even for cards using thermal grease. The most likely reason for the high overclocking success found in the 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro is the quality of the GeForce processor. There are two main enemies to overclocking: heat and purity. The first seems to be sufficiently dissipated by the heatsink and fan, resulting in a overclocked temperature that can be tolerated by the GPU. The later, chip purity, is often the reason that variation is found between identical products. Similar to the reason that RAM can not be overclocked indefinitely (as they do not produce much heat), the quality of the silicon used to manufacture the processors also dictate overclockablity. Some sheets are just more pure than others, resulting in different overclocking potential in the GeForce chips. There is no way to tell which chips are a better yield, but at least with the 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro you know that heat will not cripple your overclocking potential by any large amount.

The other side to overclocking is the RAM. With a stock speed of 300 MHz reached by running the DDR chips at 150 MHz each, almost every DDR card can improve upon the memory clock. This is due to the fact that the 6 ns DDR SGRAM chips used are rated to run at 166 MHz each, resulting in a 333 MHz memory clock speed. As we have seen in almost every other DDR card, the 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro was able to reach a maximum memory clock speed of 345 MHz before stability decreased. Due to the fact that every DDR card we have seen uses Infineon 6 ns SGRAM chips, it is no surprise that the RAM performs almost identically regardless of the card.