OC'ed GeForce GTX 480 Shoot-Out: MSI vs Gigabyte

There are number of things that make the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 480 SOC stand-out amongst other GeForce GTX 480 cards--its relatively high frequencies, custom “WindForce 3X” cooling solution, and its unique PCB which is outfitted with what Gigabyte is calling its “Extreme Dual BIOS Technology”.

Gigabyte’s GeForce GTX 480 SOC series is similar to other GTX 480’s in that it has the same 1.536GB of frame buffer memory and 480 active CUDA cores, but its frequencies are much higher than reference cards. The SOC edition’s clocks are 820MHz for the GPU, 1.64GHz for the shaders, and 950MHz (3.8GHz, effective) for the memory, which obviously results in better performance over lower-clocked reference models. The GeForce GTX 480 SOC series is also quieter than reference cards thanks to its custom triple-fan cooling solution.

Its custom design and higher frequencies already make the Gigabyte GTX 480 SOC one of the fastest GTX 480-based cards on the market, but extreme overclocked who wish to push the card even further using more exotic LN2 or Phase Change cooling solutions can also take advantage of the GTX 480 SOC’s Extreme Dual BIOS Technology. Like MSI’s offering, a simple push-button switch on the Gigabyte GTX 480 SOC gives users the ability to use a secondary BIOS, which works around the “zero degree” bug that affects stability when the GeForce GTX 480’s internal thermal sensor detects a temperature below zero.

Looking at its features and specs, its blatantly obvious that Gigabyte is targeting hardcore users with their SOC series of graphics cards. If the testing goes teh way we expect it to, this card is easily one of the most attractive GTX 480s out there. Time to fire up some benchmarks...