Joined on 04/21/04
Simple Review
Pros: Even tho i'm on XP with no DX10+ this thing screams beauty. I've gotten on steam and gotten the latest demos...batman, fear 2, etc...and this thing ran them almost flawlessly on a 5 year old PC (p4 3.0ghz, 1gigram) at 1920x Resolutions! I was amazed! That 1gig on the card really screams when its needed. Fear2 was the only sluggish, but that was due to my PC going after the page file as it ran out of RAM after the 550~ meg mark since i had a lot of stuff running passively. ITS QUIET!!! The 100% fan (when changed) is kinda loud, but it is about as loud as my PSU when i crank its fan up to max. Not going to complain when i used to have to fight my volume control vs my X800XT to watch Rescue Me....
Cons: Not much...the thing puts out some heat, its really hot blowing air out the small gap under the plastic duct system. Could probably cook some popcorn on that air alone under full load.
Overall Review: Once the new pc i ordered comes in I may XFire these, depending on if the performance is beneficial. But for now, running games at 1920x Resolutions with this junky old computer I have....i wont be complaining for a while. :)
LOUD Pump!!
Pros: Cold! 29C - 51C temp range. OC'd to 2190 but for some reason there are "limiters" that kick in and drop it down to 2176 for no apparent reason. Overall pretty quiet fan on the rad. It CAN be loud, though, but there's no reason to run it fast.
Cons: The pump is just awful and loud. Louder than my mechanical keyboard while i'm typing with the case open. It's ridiculous. I'm already RMA'ing it because I want the product but there's no reason that this should have passed through QA. Ridiculous...
Overall Review: Would Recommend. Probably wouldn't purchase Gigabyte products again, though. I've been burned by a MoBo and now a Video Card....sigh...
Average Joe
Pros: Quiet Fans Great Cooler overall
Cons: It cannot hit 2.1GHZ like all FE cards can. Power Draw just makes your power bill go up while not giving you any more performance over the Founders Edition
Overall Review: I'm starting to question if nVidia kept binned chips for the FEs because none of the AIB cards are hitting 2.1GHZ in the reviews I've read and I've ready quite a bit of them. I know..silicon lottery....but youtube people are stating FE's getting 2114ish and AIBs sticking to about 2050mhz. Mine hits around 2025-2080 but is sometimes unstable (depending on the game) above 2050. Save your $$...get the basic EVGA SC. Save your electric bill. Get the basic EVGA SC.
3 year or lifetime warranty
Pros: Fast
Cons: If it were a 3 year or a lifetime warranty (MSI, Gigabyte, XFX...) Then I would have purchased it. 2 years is not enough future-proof comfort for me on already OC'd video cards.
Paying for what you get
Pros: Powers your stuff....if
Cons: If you can get it to go on correctly. The connecting pins on the power side are so cheaply made that they are extremely thin and will actually bend backwards and slide out of the plastic of the connector. I shorted a hard drive because of this, i didn't notice it had spread the metal inside the connector and touched another wire. It fried the hard drive and might have messed up my PSU.
Overall Review: 1 of the 3 i ordered works...but that is because the third one i took my extreme time hooking up, like babies care. Holding the wires instead of the connector while connecting it seemed to do the trick, and jiggle it around until it finally goes on. Also, they come off really easily. I was trying to install Win7 And my CDrom was outside my case (i borrowed a roomates) and just from hooking it up, it had slipped the power connector lose and the HDD wasn't powering on anymore...so just keep eye out for it. Very cheap product.