It's cool, it's relatively quiet it is overclocked from the factory and looks the business so there is very little not to like about the GIGABYTE G1 GAMING GTX 970 SOC. IF you're a gamer still clinging to 1080p resolutions then this card will no doubt cut through frame rates like a hot knife through butter however it will come at a cost. £289 is cheaper than other GTX 970's on the market and also faster however it is still a little more expensive than the competing, and slightly faster R9-290X. As with the ASUS GTX 970 STRIX we reviewed recently, it is hard to recommend this card over that if raw performance is what you crave because in the majority of scenarios, the 290X is the faster card. If on the other hand you hold loyalty to NVIDIA then you could do a lot worse than buy this graphics card because despite being slightly slower than a R9-290X, it is still a very good graphics card.

It is slightly faster and also slightly cheaper than the ASUS card we pitched it against today. Both cards look stunning and thus aesthetically at least, there is very little to choose between them. The G1 looks better from the side viewpoint thanks to the illuminated 'WINDFORCE' logo but other than that you could fit a cigarette paper between them as far as looks go. The ASUS card is quieter and slightly cooler while using less power but conversely didn't overclock quite so high so we think your decision is most likely going to come down to whether you want raw performance or power efficiency and cooling. If the former is your choice and you feel an allegiance to NVIDIA then go for the GIGABYTE.



Overall, we feel that the graphics card we have reviewed today makes for a very good, high end graphics card that offers a good degree of future proofing. We liked the FLEX(ability) of having additional Displayports which is a rarity among NVIDIA based GPUs so GIGABYTE deserve credit for this but you will sacrifice case temperatures because of this due to the fact the additional ports take up the exhaust area and thus the hot air dissipated from the graphics card will be circulated back into the case. So this card has its good and not so good points which will depend greatly on your requirements as to whether you feel this card is right for you or not. Us? We liked it but it wasn't quite good enough to warrant our Gold award on this occasion but does receive our stamp of approval.


To summarise:
A fast card that is forced to make sacrifices in cooling to provide some innovative features.