Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC Edition Video Card Review

Legit Video Card Reviews

Welcome to the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC Edition Video Card

Today we are going to be looking at an add-in-board partners version of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 video card that might be worth your hard earned money. The card we are looking at today is made by Gigabyte and has the GPU core clock and shaders factory overclocked, so you get an extra performance boost without having to get your hands dirty with overclocking utilities and software. The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC comes clocked at 830 MHz core, 1660 MHz shaders and 4008 MHz on the GDDR5 memory ICs. The NVIDIA reference design for the GeForce GTX 560 video card is 810 MHz core, 1620 MHz shaders and 4008 MHz memory. As you can see, Gigabyte left the memory clocks alone, but increased the core clock by 20MHz and the shader clock by 40MHz. This is a mild overclock when you step back and look at it, but Gigabyte isn't charging any extra for this overclock as it is their entry level NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 card design! In fact, this video card is the least expensive of the 14 GeForce GTX 560 video cards that are being sold right now on Newegg.com! So, how much is the card? The GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 560 OC GV-N56GOC-1GI video card is $169.99 after a $20 mail-in rebate!

Now we all know that Gigabyte is one of the leading motherboard manufacturers in the world, but did you know they were in the business of making video cards as well? Well... they are. But I guess the better question would be, do they make a good video card? That is what this article is for. Gigabyte was founded way back in 1986 in Taipei, Taiwan and back then they supplied motherboards to custom computer makers. But now, all these years later, all you have to do is pull the side panel off of a case and chances are you will see one of Gigabyte's products, whether it be a motherboard, video card, or even mice and keyboards.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC Video Card features NVIDIA PhysX technology as well as NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround, 3D Vision and Pure Video HD, all of which make your movie watching, or better yet your gaming experience, a far more beautiful and immersive experience. Now, let's not forget SLI, because when you put two Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC Video Cards together you get the ability to nearly double your video gaming pleasure. In these times of tight budgets most people's first question is, "How Much?" Well, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC (GV-N56GOC-1GI) Video Card will set you back $169.99 shipped. This also carries a 3 year warranty.

But the big star here today is the Windforce cooler on the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC (GV-N56GOC-1GI) Video Card. With two 100mm fans inclined toward each other it creates a kind of anti-turbulence that not only moves more air away and keeps your new video card nice and cool with 30.5 CFM of airflow from each fan, but it is also very quiet coming in at a mere 31 db at full speed, and full speed is 2000 RPM. Not too bad, if you ask me. You may very surprised by what we found when we tried to fry this card with a full load. I don't want to stop there, though, because there is much more to the Windforce cooler than its inclined fans and quiet operation. It also features four 6mm copper direct contact heat pipes to help dissipate that hot air that surrounds your Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC (GV-N56GOC-1GI) Video Card while it is trying to help you pwn n00b's. And if you are worried that the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC (GV-N56GOC-1GI) Video Card won't fit into your case, worry not as it weighs in at a little over 9 inches long and a little over 5 inches high, and it is a double slot width video card so the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC Video Card will have very little problem fitting into most modern cases sold on the market today.

Gigabyte currently makes 4 versions of the GTX 560 Series GPU:

• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC(GV-N56GOC-1GI)
830 MHz Core Clock/4008 MHz memory Clock at $169.99

• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti SO (GV-N560SO-1GI-950)
950 MHz Core Clock/4580 MHz memory clock at $259.99

• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti SO (GV-N560SO-1GI)
1000 MHz Core Clock/4580 MHz memory Clock at $259.99

• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti OC (GV-N560OC-1GI)
900 MHz Core Clock/4000 MHz memory Clock at $296.65

Looks like Gigabyte has made sure there is a card for everyone's taste as well as their budget. As you can see, all of the video cards listed above are from the Ti series. At the time of this writing Gigabyte does not make any other non Ti card than the one we are looking at today. This is the part of the article where I tell all of you that we should take a look at the features and specifications of the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC Video Card, and that we should quit wasting time and find out just how the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC (GV-N56GOC-1GI) Video Card performed in our battery of torture tests.

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC Video Card Specs:

• Core Clock: 830 MHz
  


• Memory Clock: 4008 MHz
  


• Shader Clock: 1660 MHz
  


• CUDA Cores: 336
  


• Bus Type: PCI-E 2.0
  


• Memory: 1 GB GDDR5


• Memory Bit Width: 256 Bit


• Memory Bandwidth: 131.3GB/sec


• Texture Fill Rate: 47.6 GT/s
  

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 OC Video Card Features:

• Microsoft Direct X 11 Support
  


• Nvidia CUDA Technology
  


• Nvidia PhysX Technology
  


• Nvidia Pure Video HD Technology
  


• Nvidia 2 Way SLI Ready
  


• Nvidia 3D Vision Surround Ready
  


• Two dual-Link HDCP Capable Connectors
  


• One Mini-HDMI 1.4 Connector
  


• OpenGL 4.1 Support
  

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