Inno3D introduces its first graphics card based on Nvidia's Fermi architecture, the GTX 470 Hawk. The GTX 470 has 448 SPs and a 320-bit memory interface. It was redesigned from the ground up to deliver the best performance on DX11 - adding dedicated engines in the GPU to accelerate key features like tessellation. The card promises to offer a great game performance and image quality, enabling film-like geometric realism for game characters and objects. Geometric realism is central to the GTX470 architectural enhancements for graphics. In addition, PhysX simulations are much faster, and developers can utilize GPU computing features in games most effectively. The combined power of DirectX 11, CUDA, and NVIDIA PhysX technologies are provided to offer cinematic visuals on your favorite games.

Basic specifications:

• CUDA cores 448
• Graphics Clock (MHz) 607
• Processor Clock (MHz) 1215MHz
• Memory Clock (MHz) 1674MHz
• Memory Amount 1280MHZ
• Memory Interface 320 bit
• Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 133.9
• Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 34

Besides the general features and advantages of the GTX 470 chip, Inno3D's Hawk card is offering more due to its special cooling system. The improved Inno3D GTX 470 Hawk is equipped with two 80mm PWM fans with a 90mm PWM fan between them that run from 900 to 2,000 RPM. Together with five heatpipes and 3x PWM fans, GTX 470 Hawk achieves a thermal resistance of 0.36°C/Watt. This cooling performance is expected to bring enthusiasts a great overclocking experience:

Despite boasting three enormous PWM fans, the GTX 470 Hawk manages to keep the noise level extremely low. Controlled by the PWM signal, the fans at the necessary speed in order to offer sufficient cooling at the lowest possible noise level. Even at full fan speed, the GTX 470 Hawk generates only 18-29dBA, a much quieter performance than the standard cooler and other aftermarket coolers:

The above chart illustrates the cooling performance of two Inno3D GeForce GTX 470’s - one is equipped with the reference cooler and the other one has the triple fanned Hawk on board. Both cards were tested under the same platforms enduring full load testing . Clearly the Hawk cooler performed 24% better than the reference cooler with the reference showing signs of stress at 92°C.

- Retail package

The Inno3D GTX470 Hawk retails in a medium-sized box with a futuristic design and several sticker/ logos on it. At the time this article was written, we didn't find the product listed online. However, the generic Inno3D GTX470 costs a ~€360 (including VAT) so we assume the GTX 470 Hawk will cost you some extra bucks. This is almost what you need in order to get a competing graphics solution, the ATI HD5870 series.

The package includes the graphics card, an iChiLL gaming mouse pad , a DVI-D to DSub15 converter and a power cable in case your power supply doesn't have 2 PCI-e power cables. There are also two discs with drivers and applications that you may need to have a look.

Let's have a closer look to the card. The Inno3D GTX 470 Hawk is huge, equipped with a unique cooling system (made by Artic Cooling). The board of the card is 25cm long but its reaches the 27cm with the cooling system installed, so make sure this 'monster' fits in your PC case :)

As we mentioned earlier, the card is equipped with two 80mm PWM fans and a 90mm PWM fan placed between them. The fans are spinning at 900 to 2,000 RPM to cool down the heatsinks and your GPU, as a five heatpipes conduct the heat from the GPU:

The card should be powered by a 550 Watt power supply unit or higher and two PCI-e power cables. Due to the size of the cooling system, the card takes up three slots once installed.

Below you can see the dual DVI and the HDMI port of the card:

As the CPU-Z utility confirms, the Inno3D GTX 470 Hawk GPU core runs at 608MHz, with the shader clocked at 1215MHz and the memory clock set at 837MHz. These are the stock speeds for the Nvidia GTX470 card but we hope that the improved cooling system of the Hawk model will offers some space for overclocking: