Size

Here are both versions of 7800 GTX in the Abit Fatality AN8-SLI, showing the card width difference. The 512 model is the dual slot card.

The size of the new cooling solution might deter some from using it on their current motherboards. If you currently have an SLI motherboard from Abit, Gigabyte, MSI, and practically every other motherboard on the market, then you'll find that the two PCIe x8 slots are close together. For the 6000 series cards this was not a problem, as the coolers did not take up the entire second slot space; the same was true with the 7000 series cards as they use single slot solutions. But this new cooler makes for a snug fit as the fan intake is very close to the bottom of the second card's PCB.

Asus designed its motherboard around the use of the Artic Cooler with the Extreme N7800 GTX TOP graphics cards, which takes up about 2.25 slots. This leaves plenty of room for the new GeForce 7800 GTX 512 cards.

Although these new cards do not get anywhere near as warm as the original 7800 GTX, they still have very big coolers. Here are a couple of shots to show you the difference between the two mainboard layouts, and why we feel these new coolers are a bit snug.

There is a lot more room with the Asus layout.