Gigabyte GTX480 SOC Review

Introduction

It's an old story by now but just in case you've been under a rock for a year, when the GTX480 was released we were all very disappointed at how cut-down it was compared to the original plans, how delayed it was, and most of all how ridiculous the power draw and heat output was. It was completely unrecommendable unless you owned a power station and lived in an igloo.

Just before nVidia admitted to the World they knew they'd made a mistake by rushing out the next model, the brilliant GTX580, we saw what we considered to be the zenith of the GTX480 possibility, the MSI Lightning.

Now Gigabyte have stepped up to the plate with their own highly modified GTX480, the "Super Over Clock". Boasting almost everything you could desire and at a more attractive price than a vanilla GTX580, does the GTX480SOC bring anything to the party, or is it a day late and a dollar short?

Tech Specs

It certainly earns its Super Over Clock title being a monster 120MHz faster than the reference GTX480. As with any major technology the rest of the chip is pretty much 'as spec', but it's the BIOS that makes the difference.

Courtesy of the Gigabyte press release you can see that they've taken the same ideas as we saw on the MSI but moved them from Hardware into Software, thus allowing easier control and greater flexibility.