Leadtek WinFast A250 Ultra TD Features

The Leadtek WinFast A250 Ultra TD is a distinctive card with its green PCB and unique heat dissipation system. Rather than using the stock-NVIDIA cooling solution with separate ramsinks, Leadtek has wrapped the entire card in a single heatsink that encompasses both sides of the card, the GPU, and the RAM itself.

There are two fans mounted on the top of the PCB, both of which have dust filters over the top of them to prevent them from getting excessively dirty. The giant double-sided heatsink definitely makes the card stand out from its competition, but it remains to be seen how it aids in cooling the core components If Leadtek's solution is superior, we should see some evidence of it in the overclocking numbers - which we'll explore a bit later on.

The card's layout conforms closely to NVIDIA's reference design, and supports dual-output (via one CRT and one DVI connection) as well as a TV-out port. The provided installation documentation is acceptable (though not stunning) and the driver CD contains the 27.42 NVIDIA Detonators - not quite the latest versions, but certainly new enough to be acceptable. Given that many buyers don't download newer driver versions unless specifically prompted to, it's good to see a company making some effort to keep its driver discs updated. As a nice touch, Leadtek also includes a DVI-to-VGA connector, which allows dual-display support with standard monitors.

The A250 Ultra TD also features 128 megabytes of onboard DDR RAM using the newer BGA (Ball Grid Array) design, rather than the older and less-efficient pin-grid array. The RAM chips on the card are smaller and squarer than the older PGA RAM. Leadtek's card also clocks in at NVIDIA's standard GeForce4 Ti 4600 reference speed of 300 MHz core clock and 650 MHz memory.

The card ships with full versions of Dronez and Gunlok, which aren't exactly great games, but are full of eye candy, if that's what you're looking for. The card itself is packaged in a smaller-than-standard box for your typical video card, but this is actually a plus, considering that much of the packaging of a video card is wasted space.