Gigabyte ‘SOC’ Media Presentation: Exclusive GTX480/470 content

👤by Sahil Mannick Comments 📅01-10-10
Gigabyte SOC GTX480 + LN2

Gigabyte are also bringing the SOC feature to their flagship GTX480 graphics card. All the previous features we’ve discussed previously on the GV-N470SO-13I can be expected, i.e. the Windforce 3X cooler, the Ultra Durable VGA+ design, Gauntlet sorting and OC GURU. Although the clock speeds haven’t been finalised, a healthy pre-overclock will no doubt make its way to the released graphics card. Gigabyte only had the bare PCB on show so grabbing it whilst no one was looking was out of the question…


The GTX480

This particular GTX480 is much more than an SOC card. It sports a dual BIOS design that caters for LN2 users so the board can either be used in SOC mode, for gamers, or LN2 mode, aimed at enthusiasts. In the extreme LN2 mode, higher voltages are unlocked so overclockers have even more headroom over the default SOC mode. The latter is already superior to other competing board on the market so LN2 mode truly unlocks its potential. The feature is akin to LN2 mode on ROG motherboards we have reviewed here, meaning that the card will overcome cold bug issues when being cooled.

In SOC mode, the core voltage can be altered between 1.05V-1.1V and the memory voltage between 1.55V-1.6V. LN2 mode unlocks the maximum core voltage to 1.4V and the maximum memory voltage to 1.85V. Rather uniquely, the PCIe voltage can also be tweaked. All this can be done via the OC GURU application and Gigabyte are proud of the fact that users can safely rely on software instead hardware modifications.


The Ferrite chokes and Samsung K4G10325FE-HC04 memory chips

The GTX480 variant also uses a 12 phase PWM design, as represented by the 12 ferrite chokes, with phase switching enabled to save power. The Samsung memory chips surrounding the GF100 core are rated at 0.40ns for an effective 5.0Gbps


The NEC Proadlizers

On the back, the card also has 5 NEC proadlizer capacitors for stable power delivery.


LN2 Mode

The GTX480 core is more power hungry than its smaller sibling, hence the requirement for the 6+8 pin PCIe power connectors. On the right are the clear CMOS key and voltage probe points. The CMOS key appears to change the card between the default SOC mode and the extreme LN2 mode. The voltage probe points can also be found on the SOC GTX470 but somewhat uniquely on the GTX480, there are 5 pins present for each probe point. Going from bottom to top, the read points are for the CPU-Core, GPU-I/O, Memory and PCIe, the last one being the ground point.

This card will have an October release but the price point hasn’t been confirmed yet. For the record breakers amongst us, Gigabyte are developing a “World Record” card with higher unlocked voltages for even more insane overclocking results! Unfortunately this card will not be available in retail and be reserved for special order.


6 pages 1 2 3 4 5 6

Comments