GIGABYTE GV-N470UD-13I GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Pros: I have two of these cards running in SLI with an i7-930 on an Asus Rampage 3 Extreme mobo. native Resolution on my antiquated LCD monitor is 1600x 900. Runs BFBC2 maxed out and smooth. Unigine Heaven shows 50.4fps at Extreme Tessalation and Maxed AA. I have noticed the 85c temps but hey the cards are designed to run like that. I'd reccomend this card to my friends.

Cons: No Cons so far...

Pros: great performance for the price. Even more awesome in SLi. Running 16XSLiAA in my games is so nice. No more jagged edges!

Cons: runs very hot, uses a lot of power, overloaded my UPS with the second card installed.

Other Thoughts: Great card, I love both GTX470s I have. (My first one was not the Ultra Durable type and runs a little hotter.) However, the supposed free Mafia II didn't come. For some reason, Newegg spent a few dollars to send a padded envelope through UPS ground, with a coupon for a free trial of Starcraft 2. Now, Starcraft 2 trials are available directly from Blizzard for free. So, why did Newegg spend money to send me the wrong coupon for a free trial I could have gotten free in any case? I smell a rat.

Pros: Gigabyte's higher quality components. Extra copper in the PCB gives the card a heavy, solid feel. Overclocked pretty well.

Cons: Didn't overclock as well as I was hoping. Would be nice if it had some type of logo/marking on the side of the cooler; it looks the same as my GTS250 when mounted in the computer, but that's really reaching.

Other Thoughts: Came with a stock VID of 0.975, which is good. Final overclock of 800/1600/1750 @ 1.075v. Solid, but not has high as I was hoping. Absolutely will not go higher with any stability.

Pros: Seemingly pretty fast, is happy with a 610w psu (49A single rail), isnt super loud (with custom fan profile) runs fairly cool with stock heatsink (idle ~ high 40s/low 50s; load ~ 70s), and OCs well.

Cons: DRIVERS. not everyone has my problems, but from the days ive spent reading, the driver situation for the 4xx series is pretty bad right now. where to start....

remember the old nvidia/creative fiasco? well for me its back worse than ever. once i enable 'gpu water simulation' in just cause 2, my sound becomes unbearable, it pops 24/7. with that feature off, its ok for the most part. fallout new vegas isnt as lucky: it doesnt pop like crazy, but its still a nuisance.

with the newest drivers for the gtx 470 at the time, 260.99
, motion is very jerky and uneven. after trying about 20 different drivers, i found 197.75 works the best to remedy that problem. fun.

GPU utilization is also very low, about 30 - 40%, and its not from a shared hardware bottleneck like CPU (not entirely at least). this means crippled performance. on the bright side, it also means future performance increases (i hope).

Other Thoughts: on my setup, windows index score for the gpu went something like this, and by something, i mean exactly:

4870: 7.6

-then-

gtx 470: 7.5

so uh yeah.

again, not everyone is having these problems, but there is a fair share that are.

if youre unlucky like i was, i hope you enjoy playing with drivers, reading forums, messing with settings, returning to forums, and smoking cigarettes.

2 eggs for potential.

-3 for not including a pack of cigarettes.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your comments. We apologize for your difficulty with your Gigabyte product. Please contact us at newegg-support@gigabyte-usa.com with the case number 63708 in the subject line. We will provide personalized service and analysis to help solve your issue ASAP. If the matter is urgent, please send us your contact number, and we will contact you.

Gigabyte VIP Support Team

Pros: Great card, no issues with the actual harware.

Cons: Gigabyte support is the worst support ever. They initially took 4 days to answer my question to which they asked me a question that I had answered in my initial question. I went ahead and answered it then a day later they ask my what my motherboard is. I provided that info in the initial question as well. They are a joke and waste of time. Going to return this and purchase a different card.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your comments. We apologize for your difficulty with your Gigabyte product. Please contact us at newegg-support@gigabyte-usa.com with the case number 63710 in the subject line. We will provide personalized service and analysis to help solve your issue ASAP. If the matter is urgent, please send us your contact number, and we will contact you.

Gigabyte VIP Support Team

Pros: Higher quality components.

Cons: It wasn't free.

Other Thoughts: After researching and flopping between all types, this card is by far the best all around card for the money, japanese solid caps and heavy as hell with the added copper. Get this card and be done with it. FYI make sure you have a decent quality powersupply or add a second hunk of junk ps and link the two with pin #14 (green) & a ground to run fans & such.

Pros: Fast! Ultra durable components! Good overclocker!

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: I installed a backplate and a high flow bracket from an other graphics card manufacturer that sells them online, and temps went down to low 80's running games with fan at 72%!!! And it's hot here in L.A.

Pros: The cards are fast, very fast at clock speed. Lots of RAM in SLI. Did I say they are fast!

Cons: Way too hot! I would not buy these cards again. I would definitely buy the ATI alternative. Yeah, the tessalation is great... but the heat is just to extreme for my taste.

Other Thoughts: I've been building computers for years. I was got a great deal from Newegg on these cards - they were cheaper than ATI 5850. I wish I would have either stepped up to 2x 5870s. I have 6 case fans and I just don't think the heat is worth the performance...

Pros: I replaced two older Nvidia cards with two GV-N470UD-13I cards on a non-SLI, multi-monitor system running Windows 7 (64 bit). Despite NVIDIA related issues, the card and associated features are great on a single monitor system.

-Exceptional rendering/GPU processing performance in Premiere CS5
-Exceptional performance in Master Collection CS5 and Windows 7
-Best graphics adapter packaging I have experienced
-Caps on all SLI and DVI connectors
-Quality HDMI cable included
-Ultra-durable component series
-Well written user’s manual and software
-3 years warranty without artificial constraints such as registering within 30 days
-Direct/quick RMA support
-Free tech support (answered in less than 3 minutes when I called)
-Shorter card length allowed access to SATA connectors on my motherboard without having to remove the video cards

Cons with the card were unrelated to Gigabyte and Newegg, so I am giving this card 5 eggs for a single monitor system.

Cons: Long story short, I inevitably discovered that enabling the second monitors on each card kicked the GTX 470 idle/2D Desktop apps temps up from 40°C to 82-85°C. This is roughly 48% higher temps per card (i.e., 104°F vs. 185°F per card), and would correspond to about a 43% increase in the systems idle power per card.

Again, I am talking about idle state and not under load. In context, my Intel Core i7 Extreme 980X runs idle at 25 °C and my older 200 series video cards run idle at about 28°C

After investigating and confirming with Gigabyte technical support, I discovered that the NVIDIA 400 generation suffers from flickering with dual monitors at lower memory MHZ. This problem is attributed to the GDDR5 memory and NVIDIAs ingenious solution was to simply disable memory down clocking and let manufacturers fix it later.

Thus my problem, a second monitor = NO memory down clocking = immense increases in idle thermal, power and acoustics for GTX 400 cards until this problem is fixed

Other Thoughts: I would have been fine with 40°C to 50°C idle and 2D desktop temps and 80-90°C load temps; however, a constant 80-90°C per card across a 10-12 hour days that entails mostly 2D apps and bouts of computer idle time was not an option for me, so I returned the cards.

The Gigabyte technical support rep actually recommended that I return the cards until the problem is corrected based on my two card & 4 monitor configuration. Would have recommended keeping if one card or one monitor per card. He also described that they were within months of a bios fix for this NVIDIA bug/defect.

Newegg support is great...