GPU Gauntlet Sorting
Cherry picking is no secret when selecting the best components. Manufacturers do it all the time to sort out the best cores, in this case GPUs. These cores tend to undergo various stress tests to make sure they can sustain high loads and temperatures and if successful, they are pre-overclocked and sold on. Not surprisingly, the end products often command a higher price point. Gigabyte have dubbed their cherry picking sorting process as GPU Gauntlet, to represent the special imaginary gauntlet used to carefully select the GPUs off the production line (as illustrated by one of Gigabyte’s representative).
The SOC cards undergo the same process. Gigabyte uses proprietary database analysis tools to investigate GPU core, shader and memory clock speeds. Cores that don’t meet pre-defined clocks fail the initial SOC selection and get used on reference boards instead. Those that do pass are then put to the test in Furmark and 3DMark to determine the highest clock speeds and optimal temperatures. Successful cores are then factory overclocked at an optimal stability point for a perfect balance between frequency, temperature and power consumption. The result is that the SOC GTX470 is clocked at 700/3348MHz from the standard 607/3348MHz clock speed, for an immediate 12% performance advantage. The beauty of GPU Gauntlet is that the final selected speed is in fact much lower than the maximum speed (the maximum point is a claimed 780MHz), where power consumption and temperature become prevalent issues, so there is still a lot of headroom on top of the already high pre-overclocked, hence the term Super Overclocked.
OC GURU
There has been growing emphasis on software overclocking tools in the past year with MSI now bundling their excellent Afterburner applications with their high end graphics cards and ASUS doing similarly with their Smart Doctor software. The benefits are numerous since they allow over volting on compatible graphics cards without the risks of hardware modifications. The problem is that all the programs end up doing the same thing so Gigabyte have tried to differentiate theirs with more features.
OC GURU presents users a friendly interface which greets them with the ability to alter the clock and memory speed using sliders. On the SOC cards, both the GPU core voltage and memory voltage can be tweaked. Subsequently, the settings can be saved on up to 5 profiles and these can be assigned to hot keys for on the fly overclocking during benchmarking or gaming sessions. The graphics card can be set to 3 modes, OC, Gaming and Green, with each providing up to 5 separate profiles.
Gigabyte are keen to show that power saving is a crucial aspect of their graphics cards, hence the ‘Green’ mode. Thanks to the PWM fans of the Windforce 3X cooler, they can be controlled manually for the best thermal/noise balance. The hardware monitor tab is also a useful addition akin to that on MSI’s Afterburner application. Phase power switching can also be monitored on OC GURU, with a tab showing how many phases are active during operation and how that translates to overall power saved.
Cherry picking is no secret when selecting the best components. Manufacturers do it all the time to sort out the best cores, in this case GPUs. These cores tend to undergo various stress tests to make sure they can sustain high loads and temperatures and if successful, they are pre-overclocked and sold on. Not surprisingly, the end products often command a higher price point. Gigabyte have dubbed their cherry picking sorting process as GPU Gauntlet, to represent the special imaginary gauntlet used to carefully select the GPUs off the production line (as illustrated by one of Gigabyte’s representative).
The SOC cards undergo the same process. Gigabyte uses proprietary database analysis tools to investigate GPU core, shader and memory clock speeds. Cores that don’t meet pre-defined clocks fail the initial SOC selection and get used on reference boards instead. Those that do pass are then put to the test in Furmark and 3DMark to determine the highest clock speeds and optimal temperatures. Successful cores are then factory overclocked at an optimal stability point for a perfect balance between frequency, temperature and power consumption. The result is that the SOC GTX470 is clocked at 700/3348MHz from the standard 607/3348MHz clock speed, for an immediate 12% performance advantage. The beauty of GPU Gauntlet is that the final selected speed is in fact much lower than the maximum speed (the maximum point is a claimed 780MHz), where power consumption and temperature become prevalent issues, so there is still a lot of headroom on top of the already high pre-overclocked, hence the term Super Overclocked.
OC GURU
There has been growing emphasis on software overclocking tools in the past year with MSI now bundling their excellent Afterburner applications with their high end graphics cards and ASUS doing similarly with their Smart Doctor software. The benefits are numerous since they allow over volting on compatible graphics cards without the risks of hardware modifications. The problem is that all the programs end up doing the same thing so Gigabyte have tried to differentiate theirs with more features.
OC GURU presents users a friendly interface which greets them with the ability to alter the clock and memory speed using sliders. On the SOC cards, both the GPU core voltage and memory voltage can be tweaked. Subsequently, the settings can be saved on up to 5 profiles and these can be assigned to hot keys for on the fly overclocking during benchmarking or gaming sessions. The graphics card can be set to 3 modes, OC, Gaming and Green, with each providing up to 5 separate profiles.
Gigabyte are keen to show that power saving is a crucial aspect of their graphics cards, hence the ‘Green’ mode. Thanks to the PWM fans of the Windforce 3X cooler, they can be controlled manually for the best thermal/noise balance. The hardware monitor tab is also a useful addition akin to that on MSI’s Afterburner application. Phase power switching can also be monitored on OC GURU, with a tab showing how many phases are active during operation and how that translates to overall power saved.
