Pros: Incredible performance out of the box with no tweaking necessary. Without any manual overclock, the stock clocks reach about 1925 MHz during 3dmark benchmarks. I had no problem putting + 140 MHz to the clocks and + 660 MHz to the memory at 100% power limit, which brought avg clocks up to about 1,987 MHz. Considering the description advertises a boost of 1,800 MHz, that's a pretty decent bump. If you register the card within thirty days of purchase, Gigabyte gives you an additional year on your warranty, so be sure to remember to do that if you do buy it. Registration took all of sixty seconds. Ideally, you never need to use the warranty, of course, but it's added value for certain. Includes dual BIOS switch. By default, one is set for silent (higher temps, lower fan speeds) operation and the other is set for OC (lower temps, higher fan speeds) operation. If you accidentally botch the card while flashing BIOS with official or custom firmware, you can simply recover by using the other bank. Should be standard on every card produced, as this could potentially save companies from having to RMA cards. It's one of those things you don't know you need until you need it. TWO HDMI 2.1 ports. You might not need the second one at this moment in time (you might not even need the first, if you're using DisplayPort), but it may be incredibly useful in the future. There are three DisplayPort 1.4a ports, as well. Incredible undervolting performance. Undervolting this card lets you get about 98% of its performance while using nearly 50W less under load, which also reduces GPU temperatures. Sure, you can throw more power at it to try and overclock for a few frames more, or you can give it a little less juice for nearly identical-to-stock performance. It might not seem like much, but those energy savings will help pay for part of the card if you plan to use it for several years and the reduced temperatures/voltage will improve its lifespan dramatically. Fan stop feature turns off the fans when the GPU is below a certain temperature. Middle fan in a tri-fan setup spins in an alternative direction to the other two, so it isn't noisy at all. Even at 100% fan speed, it's not as loud as I'd expected. Has a backplate. To be fair, so does the Gigabyte 3080 Eagle. The big differences between this card and the Eagle are the additional year on the warranty and the dual BIOS switch. This card also has higher stock boosed clocks, but I would be blown away if the Eagle could not hit 1800 MHz, the listed boost of this model. Unlike RGB Fusion, AORUS Engine seems to at least do what it claims to do. The font could use some scaling (I can't imagine how hard the numbers are to read if you're using a 4k+ res display) because the numbers are tiny, but I had no problems manually increasing clock and memory speeds before reverting back to default.

Cons: RGB Fusion absolutely refuses to run on my computer. I have uninstalled/reinstalled the AORUS Engine, App Center, and RGBFusion 2.0 dozens of times over the past day in a futile attempt to change or disable the RGB on the side of the card. When I attempt to open Fusion directly, through the AORUS Engine, or Gigabyte App Center, my computer hard locks as the program tries to poll my hardware for RGB compatibility. This also locks the demo scrolling RGB on the card, so I have to power down, unplug the PSU, dissipate the remaining electricity, and reconnect the PSU to get the RGB to begin scrolling again. That's it. My only con is the RGB software is actually impossible to use. I've gone so far as to take an extra SSD, reinstall Windows, and try the software on a fresh Windows 10 installation. Updated or not, the software simply does not work. Gigabyte, please fix it! I would love to set the RGB as a solid color or turn it off for nighttime use.

Overall Review: Replaced an EVGA 980 ti Classified with this card to power a 2560x1440@144 display and it has abolutely chewed through everything I've thrown at it. It is paired with an i7 6700k (boosted to 4.5 GHz) and 16GB DDR4 3400, all on air cooling. Microsoft Flight Sim ran at about 40 FPS on high settings previously and now is up to 50 FPS on absolutely maxed settings. Horizon Zero Dawn benchmark, maxed out, gets 116 FPS in the benchmark. Yakuza Kiwami 2 runs at about 115 FPS maxed out while cruising around Sotenbori. Quake II RTX runs at about 80 FPS with medium reflections. GPU temps have hit a max of 73C, while average is closer to 67-69C. If you have any existing VR headset, this will handle it no problem. I have a Rift S and Half-Life Alyx holds a steady 80 FPS maxed out with 2x supersampling and frame times look chef's kiss. Every game I've tried runs at 2x supersampling, actually. The Reverb G2 will put it through its paces when it releases later this year, but every other existing headset will work perfectly. The card hasn't crashed on me beyond the RGB software freezing the entire computer. 4/5 seems too low and 5/5 seems too high, primarily due to the RGB software, so I'd give this 4.5/5.

Pros: - Inexpensive - After putting everything together, it seems solid. I've traveled with my PC without any issues. - Semi-useful front, backlit LCD screen with temperature, HDD activity, case fan control, and time functions (can also set a max temp so the PC beeps when it gets too hot, although most BIOS software will do that with the right configuration) - Two USB 2.0 ports, mic (3.5mm), and audio (3.5mm) jacks on the front - Allows for two additional case fans on the top - Once the motherboard is installed, the rest of the installation is tool-free (save for CPU coolers or additional case fans) - Easy HDD installation - Box was packed well enough that it staved off the massive amounts of damage a certain shipping company tried to inflict on it. - I actually got my $10 rebate in, get this, CHECK form. Not pre-paid card. I didn't get it until after sending them an e-mail a few months after I sent out the rebate, though.

Cons: - The part of the chassis that the motherboard is mounted to has screw holes for both mATX and ATX motherboards, but I had a somewhat difficult time getting the ASRock Z75 Pro3 motherboard fastened securely. It seems like all of the screw holes were a few millimeters closer towards the back of the case than they should have been. Also could've been the motherboard, but I didn't exactly have an extra motherboard laying around to find out. - The case isn't wide enough to fit an aftermarket CPU cooler (Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO [RR-212E-20PK-R2]) and the 220mm side fan. Had to remove the fan to get the case back together after cooler installation. - The door covering the four front ports is pretty cheap. The door drops down onto two tiny, plastic hinges that are just dying to be broken off by the slightest bump. - The front 3.5mm audio jack broke after maybe a dozen uses. I need to use my motherboard's audio jack for headphones now. - The HDD activity wiring from the front of the case to the motherboard had a wire cut from it, so I can't look at HDD activity on the LCD display. There had been a wire there originally, but it's very clear that it had been cut by a pair of scissors, which is weird. Maybe someone who works in QA is going Serpico. - Very little documentation comes with the case. There's a wiring diagram for the front panel, but there aren't any instructions on how to get the front of the case disassembled. Until I can find a way to take it off without breaking it, I can't fix the HDD activity wiring. - The slots on the back for PCI/PCI-e cards aren't removable without breaking them off. They're molded into the case itself, so if you break one off, you need to make sure you're breaking off the correct piece or else you're gonna have a strange gap on the back of your PC. - The HDD trays have screw holes that fit SSDs, but you can't actually connect the SSD without modifying the tray in some way. The lip of the tray, once mounted, is in the way of the SATA cable. Easily remedied by cutting the tray with tin snips or just taping the SSD to the tray.

Overall Review: I decided to buy this case because I'd read a review from someone saying they'd gotten the 220mm fan to work with the same CPU cooler I was interested in. The price was also in the right range, as I was wanting to put together a gaming PC for less than $800. Despite the HDD activity wiring being cut, the broken headphone jack, and the side fan not fitting with my cooler, I'd say it was an okay purchase. Another review also stated that there was an issue with case fan wiring regarding the fan controller. If I power down my GPU/CPU fans, I can definitely tell that the fan controller is working for the front case fan. The side fan has its own manual control, which could have been what he/she was referring to, however.

Pros: Surprisingly quiet Cools extremely well Benefits far outweight the cost of the cooler

Cons: Somewhat difficult install (needed another pair of hands) Original Xbox huge

Overall Review: Not having paid attention to overclocking in nearly a decade, I was surprised to discover that liquid cooling isn't really an OC necessity. The Cooler Master 212 line of coolers seem to be the undisputed champions at the moment. For ~$30, you can get a decent boost in processing speeds without running the risk of degrading the life of the processor. As nearly every other review states, this thing is huge. I was originally going to pay a little more for a smaller cooler, but another (case) review stated that they got the cooler working without disassembling the case's side fan. I have the Sentey BX1-4237 v2.2 case and I think the reviewer is either mistaken or has dark, mysterious powers that I couldn't begin to comprehend. I had to take the side fan off, which leaves a lovely grilled circle for TECHNOLOGICAL NOISES to escape from within. I'm sure more dust is going to get in there, too, but I digress. Cooler installation was, undoubtedly, the hardest part of my build. There's a mount you first mount to the motherboard. When setting the cooler (making sure not to mess up the thermal paste), you've got to have faith the part that actually fastens it to the motherboard-mounted mount lines up with the bolt holes. That, or you need another pair of hands to hold the cooler while you line up the bolt holes. I feel like this could easily be remedied by threading the part that fastens the central part of the cooler's frame so it isn't wiggling around during placement. I've had the PC running for a few weeks now and the CPU's temperature has not gone above 55 degrees Celsius. Using the motherboard manufacturer-supplied software to control fans, I have it set to 55 degrees max. It has really only hit that point a few times. It typically runs around 35 degrees if I'm browsing the web or not doing anything taxing. It hovers around 50 degrees while playing Planetside 2. I assume that, due to the software, if the CPU is running hot enough, the cooler's fan will kick into high gear. That has yet to happen. Keep in mind, I haven't overclocked my 3570K yet. I haven't run into anything where my CPU has been the bottleneck (GPU is a Sapphire 7870), so it hasn't been necessary. I assume I'll have to overclock as games come out during the next couple of years. Even with the semi-difficult installation, I'd say it's worth it.