A closer look continued

The shroud looks nice and finally we have a glowing logo, it seems this as an important feature for some users.



The shroud is made of plastic with anodized aluminium trimmings, otherwise it would be too heavy. It is open on all sides and the openings serve as exhaust vents.

We always advise users to clean the heatsink regularly. It’s good for the card and it also helps keep fan RPMs as low as possible, but cleaning the heatsink can become cumbersome on some cards, as it is a case with the GTX 1080 Phantom. Unfortunately, accessing the heatsink is not easy. You cannot remove the shroud simply by undoing some screws, the entire cooler has to be removed. Note that removing the whole heatsink will void warranty. 


The new Phoenix cooler uses two 10cm fans and both fans are connected using a single 4-pin connector. Fan RPM can be regulated via different tools, like Gainward’s own EXPERTool.





The LED on the top requires its own power connector.

As already said the PCB is 2cm taller than a reference one. This creates enough space to use two huge heatsinks which are connected using three 8mm heatpipes.



Everything feels solid and precise.