Over the last month or so we have taken a look at a number of GeForce GTX 560 Ti models from various manufacturers and in the majority of cases we have been impressed. The stock GeForce GTX 560 Ti is a good card with great performance for the price and offers an nice entry into stereoscopic 3D and PhysX rendering. That said the reference design does have some stiff competition from the Radeon HD 6870 and more recently their Radeon HD 6950 with 1GB of memory. In order to make their product more attractive to the end user and sway them towards it most manufacturers release redesigned cards which improve on various aspects including the cooling solution and clock speed settings. - HeavenMedia

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Super OverClock Preview

Another manufacturer who is taking this approach is Gigabyte and in the past we have seen some excellent custom graphics cards from them. Our sample of the Super Overclock arrived without the retail box. Consumers can expect to receive this with an good bundle of extras inside which include a mini HDMI conversion cable. There are also some nice touches to the overall package as Gigabyte add covers to the various connectors and ports to stop dust accumulation and certain damage over time. The card itself does look significantly different to the reference design model with the most noticeable difference being the cooler.

On this model Gigabyte uses their Windforce cooler which is a low noise model with two fans that sit over a block of aluminium fins. And running from the GPU to these fins are four copper heatpipes and the overall design is designed to reduce turbulence from the airflow. In addition to changing the cooler Gigabyte have also applied a number of tweaks to the video card, calling this process ultra durable. This guarantees that the user receives a card with high quality components from a 2oz copper PCB, quality branded memory and Japanese solid capacitors with ferrite core chokes. Gigabyte did go that extra step with GPU gauntlet sorting.

Since the launch of the GeForce GTX 560 Ti we have seen more than just a few versions of the board, each with their own take on the design. Gigabyte's Super Overclock edition exceeds them all though, even the DirectCU versions. Almost every aspect of this product impresses, from the high quality components used on the PCB to the cooler which retains a dual slot design but does manage to exceed cards which require three slots. If there is one criticism, it would have to be the output layout. If Gigabyte had gone for a different design with dual DVI and full size HDMI it would have been great though this is a minor issue.

In terms of performance the GeForce GTX 560 Ti Super Overclock card is hugely impressive. It runs faster out of the box than any other GeForce GTX 560 Ti that we have seen and it does so with incredibly low noise from the cooler. There is of course the issue that the competing products, the Radeon HD 6950 can power three screens from a single video card however for this performance level the best experience for both architectures happens in multi GPU operation where the GeForce GTX 560 Ti can also run an additional display. Speaking of the Radeon HD 6950, in our comparisons there was little to choose between the two.

With a pricetag of $269 the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti SOC version is priced appropriately for its performance, quality and features and costs approximately $15 more than an overclocked Radeon HD 6950 1GB video card which doesn't come bundled with an HDMI cable. This is without a doubt the best GeForce GTX 560 Ti we have seen so far. Gigabyte have created another exceptional graphics card to add to their Super Overclock range.