GIGABYTE Super Overclock Series GV-N56GSO-1GI GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Pros: Worked as expected the first 7 months.

Cons: Artifacting, freezing, and display driver stopped working are all errors I have been dealing with

Other Thoughts: I have had this GTX 560 card RMA'd through Gigabyte twice now and they both worked for a few hours after receipt then quickly began to degrade. The GTX 560 is obviously defective.

Pros: This card was incredibly fast while it worked and ran surprisingly cool under stress until artifacts and freezes started happening.

Cons: After 6 months artifacts began appearing and the display driver would crash during 3D gaming. Even video playback would cause the screen to blank out and reset the display driver.

Other Thoughts: Once I started seeing graphical problems with this card I tested out a number of OpenGL and OpenCL demos to try and isolate the issue. It seems the problem occurs usually when accessing the shaders, and happens almost instantly when trying to use the compute functions of OpenCL or under heavy shader rendering in OpenGL and Direct3D.

Pros: gives great color; runs well playing battlefield 3 and metro 2033. never had any issues with it. the toolbox from gigabyte allows control of the dual fans during gaming and video rendering.

Cons: runs hot! even with 120 mm case fans at 3000 rpm running nearby, the graphic card still exceeded 70 degrees celsius! ventilation is key with this card. the plastic fan/heatsink housing seems cheap, but then again, alot of things made nowdays are that way to me.

Other Thoughts: its still a good card. in retrospect, i have no regrets over purchasing this card. gigabyte has been very easy and hassle free to deal with. gigabyte's website installed with no issues. no issues with the manufacturer whatsoever. good buy, but watch those heat temps!

Pros: worked for 1 month

Cons: this graphics card stopped working and now all my games are artifacted

Pros: Good price, runs most anything on high settings (no problems with Witcher 2, Deus Ex: HR, or SW:TOR on max settings).

Cons: I have owned this card for 8 months. Over the past month, it has started having problems. After a couple hours of gaming, the screen would glitch for a moment, and then the card would lower its speed from 900mhz to 405mhz. Only a complete reboot gets the card back up. GIGABYTE OC shows the temperature around 40-50 usually, never over 60. The problem is getting worse too, now it only takes about half an hour to an hour for it to glitch out.

Other Thoughts: I've owned the card for 8 months. Before this I would have given it 5 eggs, but 8 months is just not a good lifespan.

Pros: Fast and quiet. It met all the expectations of the video card I was buying

Cons: This was the real kicker for the rating I gave it. I had a problem that began shortly after installing the video card into my computer. Even if I try to watch a simple youtube video, my screen goes black and I get this message:

"Display Driver stopped responding and has recovered.
Display driver NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 301.42 stopped responding and has successfully recovered."

This problem has happened before my current version and has yet to be fixed. It becomes a major hassle when trying to do simple tasks. I've searched on the internet to see if there are any solutions but I have not found any yet.

Other Thoughts: Other than that one problem, the video card has been awesome. I just wished it worked properly.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your comments. We apologize for your difficulty with your Gigabyte product. Please contact us at newegg-support@gigabyteusa.com with the case number 84518 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: High clock speed, low temps

Cons: on initial installation, the gigabyte software failed to install multiple times. I didn't worry about it since card seemed to work fine.
After a little over a month of use, heavy use on the card started to cause artifacts in all games, and constant freezes and crashes.

Other Thoughts: After a little over a month of use, heavy use on the card started to cause artifacts in all games and eventually on the desktop with only a few windows open (word, internet, folders). Tried updating and rolling back nvidia drivers but always encountered errors and couldn't install any nvidia driver fully. checked memory, updated all bios to no avail.
-reinstalled windows, drivers and gigabyte software installed correctly. But now the screen freezes and blacks out every half hour and the "NVIDIA driver kernal stopped responding and recovered" error pops up (including twice while writing this review)

-kicking myself for throwing out the box after only a month

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your comments. We apologize for your difficulty with your Gigabyte product. Please contact us at newegg-support@gigabyteusa.com with the case number 82071 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 out of the box. Quite and cool.

Cons: Tearing and freezing started after a couple of months of use. Now anytime anything stresses the gpu (including flash), the pc freezes. Tried in two different pc's same results. Just placed 2nd RMA request, hopefully it won't be a problem :(

Other Thoughts: I've been an nvidia customer for years (back in the Riva TNT days). I've never had a problem with a card until now. Hopefully this one goes away quickly.

Manufacturer Response:

ear Customer,

Thank you for your comments. We apologize for your difficulty with your Gigabyte product. Please contact us at newegg-support@gigabyteusa.com with the case number 81651 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: Very nice card for the price. Quiet. Smaller than my old GTX260.

Cons: As some have noted, when the fan speed is above 75%, the rear fan on my unit tends to make a clicking/buzzing noise. I used the OC Guru to manually set the fan speed at 75%, no more buzzing.

I haven't seen the temps go about 68C during any gaming session.

Other Thoughts: My wife needs an upgrade, I think I'll get a 560ti and give her this...she won't know the difference...right?

Pros: Good price/performance sweet spot.
Runs modern games at high settings.
Quiet with two nice big fans.
Looks nice.

Cons: Doesn't have a direct exhaust to the outside of case. Might put a lot of heat in to your case.

The way the big, odd shaped heatsink is mounted doesn't seem as rugged as the reference/oem coolers. I'd be gentle with how you handle it.

Other Thoughts: A cut above the stock/oem/cheap brands. Worth the extra price.