Seven of NVIDIA's Latest and Greatest Cards Tested

Noise

The fan spins up to full speed when the system is turned on and then regulates itself, slowing down. On the Windows desktop, this results in a noise level of 40.1 dB(A). Despite its higher clock speeds, this is only about 1 dB(A) louder than the standard GTX chip.

Tools And Software

The card ships with Power DVD 6 for video playback, while video editing tasks are handled by Power Director 3. Additionally, the games Joint Operations and Xpand Rally are also included.

As with the other Gigabyte cards, the most important tool is Gigabyte's VTuner 2, which allows the user to monitor and change the card's clock speeds. A right-click on the taskbar icon opens up a context menu with more information and additional utilities:

• VGA BIOS Writer lets you save and easily update the graphics card's BIOS.
• Color Adjust lets you fine-tune brightness, contrast and gamma level.
• Execute Update checks for new versions of the utilities on Gigabyte's servers.
• VGA Info isn't terribly useful.