Temperature

The NVidia driver panel has a thermal readout on it so let's use it to see what kind of differences we have between our Inno3D 7900 GS at 450MHz, the iChill's 550MHz and our overclocked 644MHz.  We put the card under load at each level by playing BF2 for 15 minutes then doing a rapid <alt> <tab> so we could look at the thermal readout on the display properties.

Before we move on, I want to point out a subtlety here.  Yes, the Zalman cooled 7900 GS shows a lower temperature than the standard cooler as you would expect but don't forget it is doing so with the core clocked a 100MHz higher in iChill trim and just shy of 200MHz with our overclocking.

Conclusion

Inno3D has not only separated themselves from the crowd with a factory overclock and performance cooling but they do so while giving end users a choice.  Their iChill performance line is offered with either the Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 6 or the Zalman VF900.  Personally, I prefer the cleaner business look of the Zalman VF900.  But the new Zalman equipped iChill Inno3D card shows us that there is a lot of performance to be had without breaking the bank.  Let us not forget that Inno3D has added in $40 worth of Zalman VGA cooling while keeping the price tag at the $200 mark. 

The Inno3D iChill GeForce 7900 GS proves that it packs lots of punch and eye candy for the discriminating gamer.  At its low price point, it opens up the option of a second card to bring SLI to bear in dual card performance for far less than the entry fee for the current super high end cards.  In the end, this review is about Inno3D polishing an existing product to a high luster.  Better, more efficient cooling, more horsepower and a much better overclocker for the same price.  It doesn't get better than that.