Gigabyte has been putting some serious effort into its premium Super Overclock edition graphics cards, often producing products with the highest factory overclocks available. Today, we have the chance to test its new GV-N470SO-13I Super Overclock edition. The raw specifications suggest that this is the fastest factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 470 released to date, and we’re anxious to weigh added performance against the premium you pay for higher-end graphics.
Gigabyte’s overclocked GeForce GTX 470 comes factory-equipped with a core clock speed of 700 MHz, which is almost 100 MHz faster than the stock 607 MHz specification. The shaders run at 1400 MHz, close to 200 MHz higher than Nvidia's reference 1215 MHz. Gigabyte claims that the overclock delivers 12% better performance than a standard GeForce GTX 470, and we’ll see if our benchmarks support this claim. Unfortunately, the card’s memory isn’t overclocked. It runs at the same 837 MHz GDDR5 as Nvidia’s reference card. This should give us some insight as to whether the GF100 GPU is bandwidth-constrained or not.
We find it interesting that Gigabyte has a marketing name for what is essentially a GPU binning process: GPU Gauntlet. The company claims that each GPU is tested for 30 minutes for overclocking headroom. After that, power switching and stability are also tested to ensure that the GPUs with the best power efficiency and lowest power consumption are used in the Super Overclock series. Gigabyte actually guarantees GPU overclocking headroom 15% beyond the reference specification.

A quick glance is all it takes to recognize that Gigabyte elected to arm its card with a more potent cooler than Nvidia’s reference blower. The cooling system is designated as the Windforce 3x, and the company claims that the triple pulse-width modulation (PWM) fan setup (equipped with anti-turbulence inclined fins and copper heat pipes) can generate 27 CFM of airflow per fan--all the while maintaining a quiet 22 dB at idle and 38 dB under load.

Gigabyte's card has a unique circuit board that differs from the reference model. The GV-N470SO-13I sports a beefy 14-phase PWM design, with 12 phases for the GPU and two phases for the memory. Gigabyte’s Ultra Durable VGA+ specification covers a blanket of features that it claims provides the following benefits: 2 oz. copper PCB for better cooling, tier-one Samsung and Hynix memory for better overclocking potential, Japanese solid capacitors for reliability, ferrite core/metal chokes to prevent energy loss, low RDS on MOFSET for faster electric current charging and discharging, and high-quality film capacitors. We have tested Gigabyte's Ultra Durable claims in the past--specifically the benefits of 2 oz. of copper on the PCB--and found the results have some merit. But the difference in performance isn't as substantial as the company's marketing department might have you expect, so keep that in mind.

For all of its performance-oriented features, the card’s outputs are standard GeForce GTX 470 fare, including two dual-link DVI outputs complemented by a single mini-HDMI output. As with reference GeForce GTX 470s, remember that you can only use two of the three digital outputs at a time.

Our test card arrived bare, sans retail bundle. However, according to Gigabyte’s marketing materials, the retail version includes a DVI-to-VGA adapter, a mini HDMI-to-HDMI cable, two Molex-to-PCI Express (PCIe) power connector adapters, a manual, and the necessary driver and utility CD.

Gigabyte put a lot of effort into improving its OC Guru tweaking utility. Not only can the user adjust clock rates and GPU voltage, but memory voltage is also adjustable. This is a feature missing on competing utilities, such as MSI’s Afterburner software. OC Guru offers a long list of other capabilities like overclocking, gaming, and energy-efficient presets, five customizable profiles, a real-time hardware monitor, and even a power-savings calculator.
We dig into our overclocking experience and results in the benchmarks. For now, let’s have a look at our test system before we see how this card performs.
We test the Gigabyte GV-N470SO-13I Super Overclock against an MSI GeForce GTX 470, which is based on Nvidia’s reference card. This gives us an ideal GV-N470SO-13I versus reference-model testing scenario.
| Graphic Test System | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i7-920 (Nehalem), 2.67 GHz, QPI-4200, 8 MB L3 Cache, Overclocked to 3.06 GHz @ 153 MHz BCLK | |||
| Motherboard | ASRock X58 SuperComputer, Intel X58, BIOS P1.90 | |||
| Networking | Onboard Realtek Gigabit LAN controller | |||
| Memory | Kingston PC3-10700, 3 x 1024 MB, DDR3-1225, CL 9-9-9-22-1T | |||
| Graphics | Gigabyte GV-N470SO-13I Super Overclock 1280 MB GDDR5 MSI N470GTX 1280 MB GDDR5* *(representing reference GeForce GTX 470 performance) | |||
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar WD50 00AAJS-00YFA, 500 GB, 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache, SATA 3.0Gb/s | |||
| Power | Thermaltake Toughpower 1200 W 1200 W, ATX 12 V 2.2, EPS 12 V 2.91 | |||
| Software and Drivers | ||||
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit | |||
| DirectX version | DirectX 11 | |||
| Graphics Drivers | Nvidia GeForce Driver 258.96 WHQL | |||
| Benchmark Configuration | |
|---|---|
| 3D Games | |
| Crysis | Patch 1.2.1, DirectX 10, 32-bit executable, Benchmark Tool, High Settings, No AA, No AF |
| Far Cry 2 | DirectX 10, in-game benchmark, Ultra-High Settings, 8x AA, No AF |
| Aliens vs Predator | DirectX 11 Default Benchmark, no AA, No AF |
| World In Conflict: Soviet Assault | DirectX 10, Timedemo, Very High Details, 4x AA/4x AF |
| DiRT 2 | DirectX 11, Timedemo, Ultra Details, 8x AA/4x AF |
| Synthetic | |
| 3DMark Vantage | Version: 1.01, Total System score |

3DMark Vantage shows us a 12% performance advantage in favor of the Gigabyte GV-N470SO-13I Super Overclock, compared to the reference GeForce GTX 470 card. This lines up exactly with Gigabyte's performance claims for the product.


World in Conflict is a CPU-limited game, and the Gigabyte card’s factory overclock does little to increase performance, although there is a slight difference.


The Gigabyte GV-N470SO-13I Super Overclock edition card fares better than the reference model here, as expected. It boasts about an 11% performance lead here.


In Far Cry 2, the factory-overclocked Gigabyte GV-N470SO-13I demonstrates its advantage over the reference card, but a gamer probably wouldn’t notice the difference while playing the game.


Aliens vs Predator shows us a five frame per second average performance increase at both of the tested resolutions, but the minimum frame rates are quite similar.


DiRT 2 isn’t particularly affected by the core and shader overclock wielded by Gigabyte’s GV-N470SO-13I. Because we’re using anti-aliasing, it’s very likely that we’re running squarely into a memory bandwidth bottleneck that could be addressed with faster GDDR5 ICs.

With the GPU voltage increased from 0.996 V to 1.167 V, we raise the Gigabyte GV-N470SO-13I’s core clock to 800 MHz and the shader clock to 1600 MHz. The result is a stable overclock. And, from what we’ve seen in the past, this is more than you can usually expect out of a reference GeForce GTX 470.

3DMark Vantage shows how overclocking boosts performance over the reference card by 19%.


In Crysis, the overclock really separates the Gigabyte GV-N470SO-13I from the reference GeForce GTX 470’s performance, leapfrogging into GeForce GTX 480 territory, as demonstrated in our Factory Overclocked High-End Graphics Cards review.

The power draw results are especially impressive when you remember that the Gigabyte GV-N470SO-13I is running at higher clock speeds than the reference card. Despite the increased performance, the card uses less power than a standard GeForce GTX 470.

The temperature results are not as dramatic as we expected. But once again, the Gigabyte GV-N470SO-13I manages to surpass reference card performance, despite an aggressive factory-backed overclock.

While the temperatures are similar, the noise difference between the Gigabyte GV-N470SO-13I and the reference card is remarkable. Even at load, the Gigabyte Super Overclock card is barely audible, while the reference model creates a fair amount of acoustic pollution.
Gigabyte’s GV-N470SO-13I Super Overclock edition card performs very well compared to Nvidia’s reference GeForce GTX 470. The ~100 MHz core clock and ~200 MHz shader clock rate advantage result in tangible speed-ups in a number of games. More importantly, the Gigabyte card manages to pull off better performance while using less power than the reference card, sustaining cooler GPU temperatures, and generating less noise in the process.
The only detractor from this card is its price. Weighed down by a $370 MSRP, you’re paying a large premium for the aftermarket cooler and specially-binned GPU (reference GTX 470s are currently selling for roughly $300).
But when you consider performance, power usage, overclockability, and reasonable noise output, the Gigabyte card isn’t easily dismissed. Further overclocking brings it close to GeForce GTX 480-class speed, but with a price tag that is at least $80 less. This makes the Gigabyte GV-N470SO-13I Super Overclock edition card easier to recommend than the flagship variant. When you compare the noise levels of GeForce GTX 470 and 480 boards, this solution is a lot easier to live with, too.
Gigabyte’s Super Overclock card has to be the most impressive GeForce GTX 470 we’ve seen yet. If you value low noise and high performance, and don’t mind paying a pretty penny for an already-overclocked board, the GV-N470SO-13I Super Overclocked edition card should be on your short list.
