NVIDIA GeForce SDR Roundup (February 00)

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Gigabyte made their transition into the GeForce market rather recently, meaning that it was a bit late into the game. However, by entering the market late and using NVIDIA's reference design, Gigabyte was able to make the GA-GF2560 into a very solid card. Cooled with a heatsink/fan combo attached to the GPU with thermal tape, the GA-GF2560 that we tested was actually able to overclock to the highest levels we have ever seen on an SDR card. The EliteMT 5.5 ns SDRAM chips are the same chips used in almost every other reference design board.

Driver wise, Gigabyte chose to use NVIDIA's reference drivers with the addition of the Gigabyte logo. While this provides for sufficient options for the majority of users (as well as more frequent driver updates), it means that the GA-GF2560 lacks some of the more advanced features found in the ELSA ERAZOR X or the ASUS cards. One very nice feature is that Gigabyte chose to enable the overclocking tab in the reference drivers, a tab which is normally only seen with a registry hack.

Pros: Overclocking utility, good cooling, TV-out support, very solid performance wise.

Cons: Very hard to find, reference design, reference drivers, does not come with Gigabyte's trademark Dual Cooling system.