The release of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 series graphics cards certainly has not been a rather smooth one. Though the performance and features are there two things backfired at NVIDIA, heat and noise levels.

What many people still do not know is that the media tested with reference engineering samples. The final retail samples have been tweaked a little. And sure, while  they are still noisy and warm, things have gotten a notch better alright. Today's review on Zotac's GeForce GTX 480 for example did not peak over 88 degrees C when completely stressed. Long story short, today is the start of several GTX 480 reviews we have lined up for the weeks to come. Now and in the near future we'll test boards from Zotac, ASUS but also have liquid cooled boards inbound from Inno3D and eVGA which apparently appeals to many of you.

Today we start off with Zotac, a company that has been quite active in the USA, EU and recently in Australia as well. We start off the review with the standard skinny on technology, we'll get you up-to-date on all the reference and official specifications and features of the new cards.

Before browsing to the next page let's have a peek at what is releases from the Zotac grotto, the all new GeForce GTX 480, which is set to deliver a knockout in single-GPU performance.

Have a peek at the green goblin we review today, and then head on over to the next page where we'll start up this review.