Overclocked GeForce GTX 480 Shoot-Out: MSI vs. Gigabyte

by Marco Chiappetta — Friday, December 10, 2010, 11:42 AM EDT

A funny thing happened during the course of this article—life got in the way. And in the few weeks that things were delayed, the PC graphics landscape changed dramatically. A couple of weeks before NVIDIA unleashed the GeForce GTX 580 onto the world, MSI and Gigabyte readied a pair of the most innovative GeForce GTX 480 cards to hit the market. Not only were the cards factory overclocked, but they featured custom coolers, re-worked PCBs, and hardcore, enthusiast-class features not found on any other GTX 480.

MSI and Gigabyte sent us these custom GTX 480s, and just before putting the finishing touches on the piece, my wife went into labor, the GeForce GTX 580 hit, a few other launches needed coverage (including the just released GTX 570), and badabing badaboom, here we are today.

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Tags: Nvidia, MSI, GeForce, Gigabyte, Gaming, graphics, GPU, overclock, GTX 480

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com