Galaxy's new GeForce GTX 470 GC edition graphics card offers a unique solution to a common problem for hardware enthusiasts. There are new features such as higher clock speeds, a custom PCB design, and something called a detachable flip fan you will want to see. We compare single and SLI gameplay performance against AMD. Today marks the premier launch of a brand new video board from Galaxy based on the latest NVIDIA signed Fermi architecture. Specifically, this is a brand new GeForce GTX 470 based card that has been custom re-designed by Galaxy. This unique graphics card aims to separate itself from other GeForce GTX 470 cards by offering some unique cooling and features. - HardOCP

Galaxy GeForce GTX 470 GC Design Version Preview

This new GC model offers some new features. Notably, as the box sticker says factory overclocked, advanced flip fan sesign, cooler and quieter, dual BIOS, with Xtreme Tuner support. These new features separate this graphics card from the standard Galaxy GeForce GTX 470. The price also separates these two cards as these new GC version comes in with a $30 premium over the standard version. Unfortunately, the factory overclocked nature is a bit of a letdown. This Galaxy GeForce GTX 470 GC edition is clocked at 625MHz core, only an minor 18MHz increase while the memory runs at the reference clock speed.

The most unique feature about this video card is the detachable flip flan. The fan has two tabs that you depress, and the entire fan assembly rotates upwards, almost flat. The idea is that you will be able to flip this fan up and clean the fan blades after prolonged use. This will allow the video card to run at peak cooling efficiency. It is essentially a method of easy access to the fan so that you can clean it when it gets dusty. So it is a rather simple idea and pretty weird that no one has thought about doing something so simple as this yet. And it really is a simple thing, yet it may save a lot of people a lot of frustration.

The Galaxy GeForce GTX 470 GC edition competes with the Radeon HD 5850 now more than ever in performance. While it seems that the latest drivers have improved performance in every game used today compared to the Fermi launch drivers. The GeForce GTX 470 performance in general is much more competitive now. Things get a little more black and white when comparing Galaxy's GTX 470 GC card in SLI config to AMD's Radeon HD 5850 in CrossFireX. It seems that SLI may be scaling more efficiently than CrossFireX as we pointed out before. Both were close in performance for single config, but not in multi GPU mode.

Galaxy has produced an solid variant of a GeForce GTX 470 powered graphics card. They have gone to great lengths to re-design this board and customize their own heatsink cooling device. We've witnessed this cooling device efficient cooling and superior noise format in action. Galaxy has gone one step further to allow long-term users of these cards to physically flip the fan open and clean out your cooling system easily so that your Galaxy GTX 470 GC edition will maintain its life and stay running as cool and as stable as it can. Innovations like these are what we like to see around here, and a big kudos goes to Galaxy for this design.