Review of Gigabyte GV-N56GSO-1GI from Super Overclock Series

Gigabyte company is known for its products for overclockers. The cards from this manufacturer have earned special recognition by representatives of the line Super Overclock, which have improved performance and higher overclocking potential. Among them is the graphics card and GV-N56GSO-1GI.

GeForce GTX 560 confidently settled in the middle price segment. This younger brother of GeForce GTX 560 Ti has replaced the predecessor in the face of the GeForce GTX 460. In fact, this is the same GeForce GTX 460, only significantly overclocked. Old video card based on the GPU GF104, which has been disconnected part of the computing units. GF114 is a new improved version of the old GPU, but older GeForce GTX 560 Ti already handles all 384 stream processors, along with 64 texture units and 32 ROP units. But the simple GeForce GTX 560 has to its credit only 336 stream processors, 56 TMU and 32 ROP, which fully meets the specifications of 256-bit GeForce GTX 460.

The new video card operating frequencies are 810 / 1620 MHz core and 4008 MHz memory, while the “old” works on 675/1350 / 3600 MHz. A significant difference. And the declared level of energy consumption – 150 watts vs. 160 watts from a representative of four series. Frequency of GF114 potentially higher than that of GF104, so the GTX 560 is still a good margin for overclocking.

The possibilities of the chip among the older GeForce GTX 560 Ti is the serial model, operating at a frequency of 1 GHz. One such record (GV-N560SO-1GI) was released in small editions and Gigabyte. The issue before Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 1024Mb 256bit (GV-N56GSO-1GI) such record frequency response is different, but it overclocked to 900 / 1800 / 4008 MHz can be called impressive.

Technical characteristics

	GeForce GTX 560 Ti	Gigabyte GV-N56GSO-1GI	GeForce GTX 560	GeForce GTX 460
Core	GF114	GF114	GF104	GF104
Process technology, nm	40	40	40	40
Number of transistors	1.95 million	1.95 million	1.95 million	1.95 million
Unified processors	384	336	336	336
Number of texture processors	64	56	56	56
The number of ROP units	32	32	32	32
Core Clock, MHz	822	900	810	675
Memory Clock, MHz	4008	4008	4008	3600
The amount of memory, MB	1024	1024	1024	1024
The memory bus, the bit	256	256	256	256

Packing and packaging

Packaging graphics card is big. The style is standard for the product series Super Overclock, looks solid and stylish.

On the back side descriptions of all the technological features and advantages of this model.

The bundle includes:

• adapter with two molex to six-slot video card power;
• Adapter DVI / D-Sub;
• cable mini-HDMI / HDMI;
• Installation CD with drivers;
• technical documentation.

Appearance and cooling system

Gigabyte video card is an original and unusual. Immediately attention grabbing are two large cooling fans.

Acceleration

GPU frequency is 11% above the standard – 900 MHz.

Gigabyte video card has delighted low noise level. Even in the load it is very quiet. Fans can be heard only if almost close to the card. And with such a minimal noise cooler copes with cooling while maintaining lower operating temperatures. Even Furmark could only warm the core to 73 ° C, which for such a heavy test is a good result.

With such a efficient cooling system it is possible to hope for good acceleration. In fact, Gigabyte GV-N56GSO-1GI did not disappoint, though nothing too outstanding was demonstrated. Graphics processor could work stably at 970 / 1940 MHz. A little disappointed with the memory, which is higher than the effective frequency of 4160 MHz that could not function normally. The resulting increase in frequency was 8% and 4%. Not impressive numbers. But if we compare with the reference, the difference will be more than an impressive 20% and 4%.

For overclocking, we used a popular utility MSI Afterburner. For these purposes, you can also use a special program from the manufacturer – Gigabyte OC Guru. At Gigabyte GV-N56GSO-1GI we implemented a complex system for hardware monitoring and management of operating parameters. And some of these functions are only available in the Gigabyte OC Guru. The program offers a more flexible configuration of voltage, fan speed, you can create different profiles. But because of limitations on the maximum frequency you will still have to resort to the MSI Afterburner, if you want to get the most out of this graphics accelerator.

Testbed

 

• CPU: Core i7 980X;
• Motherboard: DFI LANParty UT X58-T3eH8;
• RAM: Kingston 3×2 GB 1333 MHz;
• PSU: Antec SG850W

Test results

It is time to look at what can Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 1024Mb 256bit (GV-N56GSO-1GI) in games. Previously, we have compared the simple GeForce GTX 560 with its competitors, so that its potential would be clear. The purpose and objectives of this testing was to find out how to implement such an overclocked at different resolutions. For this test was carried out at 1680×1050 and 1920×1080 with maximum image quality settings with antialiasing AA 4x.

Results of testing the video card Gigabyte GV-N56GSO-1GI in the resolution of 1920 x 1080.

Results of testing the video card Gigabyte GV-N56GSO-1GI in the resolution of 1680 x 1050.

Mentioned products: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 1024Mb 256bit (GV-N56GSO-1GI).

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