When NVIDIA released their GeForce GTX 480 the first issue that arrised was a very hot chip. The heat levels had to be compensated for somehow, NVIDIA opted for a cooling solution that was rather loud. With the release of the GeForce GTX 470 things had gotten a fraction better, but the GPU was still putting out lots of heat and as a result the cooling fan rotation of the cooling solution had to be configured at a high-RPM, making both products very noisy when fully stressed.

As such many NVIDIA board partners went on a quest to find better 3rd party solutions but only a handful of the AIB/AIC partners managed to actually put some interesting stuff on the table.

Gigabyte is now saying it out loud and proud; “we have a custom cooling solution for the GeForce GTX 470″. Next to that they improved the PCB, applied 3-way fan cooling and overclocked the board. All facts combined created the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 470 SOC edition (Super Overclock).

A really nice card we can say right away. Right now prices are dropping thanks to competition from ATI, but also the popular GeForce GTX 460 paved the way for price-drops. We spot prices starting at 350 EUR for the product we test today. Will it be good? Will it be able to handle the heat levels and keep noise under control? I mean, Gigabyte applied really serious heat pipe based cooling solution on top of the GTX 470 with three active fans.

• READ MORE (Source): Gigabyte GeForce GTX 470 SOC review