GIGABYTE GTX570 1280MB 'Super Overclock' Edition Review

👤by Richard Weatherstone Comments 📅01-08-11
Closer Look Pt.2

WindForce Removal

Removing the cooler was a very simple affair with just four spring loaded screws holding it to the PCB. The core area has direct contact with the copper vapor chamber which is framed by an aluminium standoff that cools the memory via the use of thermal pads.


Fan Shroud Removal

Flipping the cooler over and having the main shroud and fan assembly removed we gain access to the main heatsink which is split into two segments. The main heatsink has horizontal fins which direct air from above the vapor chamber out to the side of graphics card whereas the smaller heatsink towards the end of the card has its fins positioned longitudinally to direct hot air out towards the front of the card. The heatsinks are also angled to ease turbulence and are linked to the vapor chamber via two 8mm nickel plated copper heatpipes.


Heatpipe solder

The heatipes are 'dip soldered' to the main heatsink which is common place among heatsinks of today rather than being manually soldered. This process is neater and presumably cheaper without losing any effectiveness of heat transfer.


MOSFET cooling

The card also takes care of MOSFET cooling by having a cooling brace which keeps MOSFET temperatures on both sides of the card under control. The brace is easily removed but the card may prove difficult to watercool due to the additional cooling required on the back of the card.


Naked card

Onto the card itself, we see at first glance it appears to be pretty much standard with the power circuitry towards the front of the card and the main GPU core framed by 10 memory IC's slightly off centre. Notice the missing memory chips and for those eagle eyed, the 'Extreme Dual BIOS button found on the GTX580 'SOC' Edition which strongly hints to the fact this is the same PCB used for both cards. Unfortunately this card only has the one BIOS so care should be taken if you intend to edit the BIOS.


Power Phase

The 12 power phases for the GPU are matched by having 12 LEDs on the underside of the graphics card which light up green depending on use. A further two power phases are reserved for the memory sub-system but these do not have LED indicators.


Samsung Memory

The memory chips used on this graphics card are Samsung K4G10325FE-HC04 which are rated to run at 1250MHz (5000MHz effective). I was intrigued to see why GIGABYTE had chosen not to overclock the memory being that this is labelled as a 'Super Overclocked' card. I am further baffled why they would choose these chips over the higher bandwidth afforded by Hynix memory used in other high end GPUs. It remains to be seen if this memory overclocks well. One saving grace though is that the OC GURU allows the option of overvolting the memory which may give us a little more headroom when it comes to getting the most from the Samsung memory.


GPU Core

The TIM used on the GIGABYTE card was very good quality and ensured excellent contact with the core. As you can see from the above picture, the whole of the IHS was not covered but as the core itself is much smaller than the protective IHS and as the centre of the core is adequately covered, heat transfer and therefore temperatures should not be an issue.



20 pages « < 5 6 7 8 > »

Comments