Gigabyte GTX 260 (216SP) 896MB Super Overclock Review

A Closer Look at the Gigabyte GTX 260 Super Overclock

Upon first glance, there is nothing to distinguish this highly overclocked product from all of the other GTX 260 cards on the market. The length remains the standard 9.5” and the only thing that really looks different is the blue PCB that comes with all Gigabyte graphics cards.

While we were a bit surprised that Gigabyte didn’t go with a custom cooler, it seems they have found that the reference heatsink is more than adequate for their sky-high clocks. It should be interesting to see if they needed higher fan speeds to compensate.


The heatsink sticker repeats the motif found on the packaging and looks great with the black color of the heatsink shroud. Unfortunately, the blue PCB takes away the sinister good looks that could have been achieved with an all-black color palette.

Even though the higher clock speeds of this card will invariably require more power to be supplied, the usual two 6-pin PCI-E connectors are all that is required. Next to these is the S/PDIF header for high-def audio pass-through.


The back of the card reveals that the PCB used is a custom Gigabyte affair which is par for the course considering they use a PCB with 2 ounces of copper added for additional thermal dissipation.


The connector options Gigabyte serves up with this card are downright perfect. You get a HDMI connector, a VGA port for all you using older monitors and a DVI connector. This should mean that any monitor or TV can be driven from this card without the need of an adaptor. If you are using a pair of LCDs, Gigabyte includes the aforementioned HDMI to DVI adaptor.