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Gigabyte Geforce GTX 260 Super OverClock Video Card Review

We have seen many factory-overclocked cards from different vendors, but most of these cards just push the GPU/MEM clocks using reference design hardware. Once in a while, a cards pop up like this Gigabyte SOC card which deviates from the group and packs a whole lot more punch then what other vendors can offer.

Author	leeghoofd
Editor	jmke
Date	2010-01-12
Discuss	11 comment(s)
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Introduction

The Nvidia GTX 260 216SP is a well established GPU. Findings its place in many gamer rigs. Solid gaming performance at a reasonable price made it steal many hearts. Plus when overclocked, game performance was close to the GTX 280. We have seen many factory-overclocked cards from different vendors, but most of these cards just push the GPU/MEM clocks using reference design hardware. Once in a while, a cards pop up like this Gigabyte SOC card which deviates from the group and packs a whole lot more punch then what other vendors can offer. Gigabyte starts off with some bold claims on the box:

Serious gamers require serious gear. That's why we've created the Super Overclock Series. All of these GPU's have been cherry picked for top performance, efficiency and reliability.

Cherry picked sounds like a dream to any overclocker. As you know rigorous testing has selected that special piece of hardware that will make it stand out from the crowd. Gigabyte calls its cherry picking process: the GPU Gauntlet.

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Cherry Picking

This cherry picking results in the following features:

A warranted factory overclock which is a good balance between stability, high frequency and efficient power consumption. Gigabyte call this the Super OC point. This is about at a 25% clock improvement over a generic GPU. Higher clocks are guaranteed, but at cost of higher power consumption and more generated heat.

These GPU's are able to maintain a better cooling efficiency than generic GPU's, resulting in stable fan speeds and thus less generated noise once you enter the arena to save the world. Up to 4% less consumption than a similar clocked generic card can be achieved.

Here are the specifications of the Geforce GTX 260 tweaked and overclocked by Gigabyte:

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An a verification screenshot of GPU-Z which matches the listed specs:

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Ultra Durable

Besides the GPU Gauntlet the other parts on the PCB have got overhauled too to warrant reliability big time. The Ultra Durable label technology finds its way into the graphics card segment.

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What's it all about :

2oz Copper PCB establishes itselfs in the graphics market. Gigabyte used this technique already in their mainboard lineup.
Tier 1 Samsung and Hynix Memory to warrant the factory overclock of 1250mhz. Which is not shabby as reference cards are running only 1000Mhz ram speeds.
Japanese Solid Capacitors : Better conductivity and increased reliability for unrivaled performance
Ferrite Core/Metal Chokes : Able to hold energy longer and prevent energy loss at high frequencies
Low RDS (on) Mosfet : Lower switching resistance for faster electric current charging/discharging

All of these changes should make this card out of the box 25% faster than a reference clocked GTX 260 216. Even the next high end card's performance should be within grasp.

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Packaging and In the Box

The artwork on the box is stunning, no more 3D generated SFX girls or pictures of frogs, but a well implemented fancy logo to show you what this card is all about:

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Inside we find the video card, the usual DVI to VGA dongle. Two Molex to PCI-E adaptors, an S/PDIF cable and a HDMI to DVI dongle complete the package

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Introduction time is over, let's try to get it to sweat ->

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