Gigabyte GTX480 SOC Review

Looking a Little Closer

Following the success of its Dual-BIOS system on the Gigabyte motherboards we now have one on the GPU. In standard position we have the normal Super Over Clock BIOS, but a quick press shifts to a secondary BIOS that is dedicated to the extremist LN2 brigade and cures cold-start issues.

Beneath the main three heatsink areas is a vapor chamber connected via three pure-copper heatpipes. As we all know genuine vapor cooling and heatpipes are the best method for air-cooling thanks to the heat loss from changing the liquid to a gas and back again.

There is undeniably little likelyhood of any heat being trapped within the cards surround. Although obviously this does take us back to the problem of heat being dissipated into the case, but that's something which occurs with nearly every non-reference design on the planet.

Power phases cannot be underestimated when it comes to the importance of providing stability and performance with any chips and that's a quality that hasn't been lost on Gigabyte. The GTX480SOC comes equipped with twice the power-phases of the stock card, having 12+2 rather than the 6+2 of the nVidia original.