Before I put the card back in its box, never to be opened again, I had to test it using liquid nitrogen. A quick session, that is, and since my Gulftown setup was located elsewhere, I had to use the Lynnfield rig. 4400MHz, 4 cores and a mere 8 threads; that's not enough to run Vantage with, so I used the next best thing: 3DMark03.

In the end, this card managed a solid 1300MHz. Well, it managed around 1375MHz, but there was simply no LN2 left to continue the session. Perhaps next time I should think before I act and order a fresh batch of nitrogen before I start testing.

Conclusive thoughts

I was angry when I started writing this review. And now I'm angry while finishing it. Why? I wanted this card to a bad overclocker so I could rip on it and give the people who forced me to write a review, a negative review. Sadly, and lucky for them, this card surprised me in terms of overclocking capabilities, which means I can't be disappointed. You'll have to perform voltage modifications to let it fly, even on air cooling, but in the end it'll go up nicely and will give you a noticeable performance boost. Most likely not enough to allow you to play the most high-end games on ultra quality settings ... but who cares about gaming anyway. Overclocking-wise, this card is fun to play with.

It has to be said explicitly, however. Manufacturers should definitely NOT treat overclockers as marketing puppets and demand reviews from products used at overclocking events. That we, overclockers, are already there and pushing their products to the maximum is already marketing enough; it's up to the people who are hired to figure out how to use those events to create direct and indirect marketing. Next time, I will not write a review. Or a bad one. For real this time.

Anyways, big thanks goes out Bernice from GIGABYTE Benelux. She's, I think, one of the very few people being capable of dealing with my way of doing things and I'm very grateful for that. And not only does she put up with me, she's also very supportive and cooperative. Definitely one of the best hardware manufacturer contacts I've had the pleasure doing business with!

Also, big thanks goes out to TONES, in particular Bert and Manu, who have been supporting this website of craziness for a while now. Thanks to their support, we are able to provide you with the, ehr, content we provide you. Check out their shop if you're in Belgium!