Summary: Gigabyte sent us one of their newest cards with interesting technologies such as “Ultra Durable VGA” and their passive cooler solution “Silent Cell”.

A couple of weeks back, we reviewed the GV-N285OC-2GI (NVIDIA GTX 285), a card placed at the “high end” extreme of the very wide range of GPUs available in the market.  Just last week we looked at a middle segment card from Zotac, the “Zotac GTS 250 AMP! 1GB“. The time has come to look at another middle segment card, this time with a GPU from AMD ATI.

INTRODUCTION

I am very excited to start working on this review, mainly because it features two exciting technologies which are unique to some of Gigabyte’s cards, the “Silent Cell” passive cooling technology and the “Ultra Durable VGA” (UDV) technology. Let’s take a look at the specifications:

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Gigabyte has clearly put in a little extra effort on the retail box for this card. They are flirting with us consumers with their aggressive graphics silk printed on the box. As you can see they have placed a small window on top of the front side of the box, where you can preview the Silent Cell heatsink.

When opening the box, we found the graphics card itself secured tightly in dampening foam as you can see from the image above. The accessories are found below the white dampening foam and we were not disapointed by the bundle Gigabyte provides with this package. Aside from the graphics card, Gigabyte have included a CrossFire bridge, a power adapter for feeding double molex to PCI-E pin (6 pins), a VGA-DVI adapter, a composite video adapter and of course the manual and CDs with drivers and applications.

GIGABYTE GV-R485SL-1GI IN DETAIL

Without a doubt, the most interesting thing about this card is its “Silent Cell” heatsink. It’s based on three 3 heatpipes of pure copper. The base of the heatsink is also based on copper but the heatsink itself is made of aluminum. One curious think we noted about this heatsink was its robustness, normally these kind of heatsinks are very fragile, but the Silent Cell is quite robust.

As you can see from the images, the heatsink covers the PCB almost completely, but it is actually only attached to the GPU chip and not the memory modules. Altogether we have 8 modules of 128MB to make the total of 1GB. The memories are Samsung 1ns, which offers a nominal frequency of up to 1GHz, although Gigabyte don’t run them at that speed which means we have a little margin for improvements.

Another outstanding feature of this card is its PCB, which is built upon the “Ultra Durable VGA” principles. The UDV technology uses almost double the normal amount of copper, which helps better lead the electricity and also improves on the cooling and general stability of the card. On the PCB we also find the 6 pin PCI-E  power connector and the connector for CrossFire mode.

Other connectors on this card are the VGA connector, the DVI connector and the HDMI connector. These three covers all you can think of both now and for the future. Of course it’s a question of saving money but it’s my opinion that all graphics cards should come with this setup of connectors.

THE TEST EQUIPMENT

OK, enough about the specs, let’s get this test going. But first, here’s the test setup we used:

We used three different resolutions, as well as 2 different configurations, one without filters and another with filters. In all scenarios we set the graphics quality setting to max. We also overclocked the CPU to 3,5GHz (250×14) and left the memory to 1000MHz.

You can view screen shots from our settings above.

BENCHMARK RESULTS

Just to get a grip of what the above graphs actually tells us, we can compare it to the result we had in our Sapphire Radeon HD 4770 review. As you can see the HD 4770 is a clear winner in 3D Mark 06, whereas in Furmark and Lightsmark Gigabyte HD 4850 has an advantage. We will just have to see what happens in the real gaming scenarios below.

GAME TESTING PART 1

In this first part of the game testing, it becomes obvious that Gigabyte GV-R485SL-1GI is superior to the HD 4770. This might also indicate that the 1GB of RAM on the Gigabyte card is more important for the performance than the GDDR5 memory on the HD 4770 card.

GAME TESTING PART 2

The second part of the game testing includes more demanding games which really puts the card to the test. Just as we noted in the part 1, the amount of memory proves important and gives the HD 4850 a slight advantage. But overall these two cards are more or less equals in these games.

As a general conclusion we have to say that Gigabyte was right to equip the HD 4850 with 1GB of memory. In very demanding games and when using filters, the extra performance is needed. I therefore conclude that with a tighter budget, if you have to choose, then go with the Radeon HD 4850 with 1GB of memory rather than a Radeon HD 4770 with 512MB of GDDR5.

RESULTS OF THE OVERCLOCKING IN GAMES AND BENCHMARKS

INTRODUCTION

We have previously only reviewed graphics cards from Gigabyte. This time we will be taking a look at a rather exclusive product, a stylish mouse called “Gigabyte GM-M7800S Swarovski Crystal Mouse”. By the name and looks of it, we can be sure that Gigabyte is aiming this product towards people who are sensitive to fashion and trends.

This is actually a bit of a sub trend we have noticed amongst manufacturers of computer accessories the last couple of years, they have started to produce technical gadgets with a touch of stylishness to them. We have for instance seen mobile phones with crystals and gold plated buttons and USB memory sticks with cold plated casing. Let’s take a look at its technical characteristics:

As you can see from the specifications above, Gigabyte did not hold back when creating the M7800S mouse. Already in the pagacking, we can see that this is a bit of a luxary item. An opening in the brown cardboard box shows the most outstanding features of the mouse, the Swarovski crystals located on top of the mouse.

On the other side of the box, there is some text describing the technical specifications of the mouse.

When removing the cardboard box, we find a neater looking black box in which the mouse and the accessories are located. In the box, we found the mouse itself, a protecting pouch, the USB connector, batteries, CD with drivers and last the certificate of authenticity of the Svarovski crystals.

GIGABYTE GM-M7800S IN DETAIL

It’s quite hard to describe the details of the GM-M7800S, it’s something you should see for yourself. However, I will give it a try. It’s a standard three button wheel mouse with wireless connectivity and a laser tracking system. What really separates this mouse from the rest are the leather surface and of course the crystals.

On top of the mouse, there is another outstanding feature, apart from the 4 Swarovski crystals and the leather surface. I am talking about the golden button which allows us to change the resolution of the laser sensor “on the go”. The are two modes available; 800 and 1600 DPI. In addition to this, there are two buttons placed on the left side of the mouse, these are regular “back and forward” buttons which allows you to switch windows or move back and forward in your web page browsing history.

On the underside of the mouse, there are a number of features. Starting with the laser sensor, we really whished it was more centered, since it helps when playing videogames. The fact that it isn’t centered actually suggests that Gigabyte does not direct this mouse towards gamers. On the underside in the image below you can also see the socket for the batteries (2 units of AAA). There’s also a reconnect button and a small compartment for the USB connector which is very useful and helps the portability of the mouse.

One of the aspects that I liked about this mouse is its small receiver, which when connected, is practically invisible and doesn’t bother us in any way apart from taking up an extra USB port at our laptop.

INSTALLATION OF SOFTWARE AND USE OF THE GM-M7800S

The installation of the software of the mouse is very simple, just put in the CD and the installation screen is prompted. There are not too many possible settings which again suggests that this mouse is not oriented towards gaming, but there are enough settings to let us adjust it to our preferencies.

First, I must admit that none of the smaller sized mice I have tested has impressed on me.  I am a guy with quite large hands so I need somting to grip. Still, the M7800S feels guite good in my hand. I guess it must be due to the leather on top of it, it just feels comfortable.

The operation of the mouse is impeccable, especially when operating it in 1600 dpi mode. When using it in Windows, it’s a dream. There are no jumps and the responsiveness is excellent. However, I wouldn’t recommend it for gaming, it’s just not made for it, but also, the size of this mouse is a bit to small, at least for me.

Something that I really enjoyed was the horizontal and vertical scrolling capabilites. It’s one of those things you can’t live without once you have gotten used to it.

CONCLUSIONS

After having reviewed some products from Gigabyte earlier, we already knew they make quality motherboards and graphics cards. To be honest, when they sent me this mouse I was a bit sceptical. But after having reviewed this mouse for some time now, it’s safe to say that Gigabyte makes quality products on other areas as well.

What we really liked about this mouse was the laser sensor, the selectable resolution, and of course the finish of the product. Even though I’m not the jewelery kind of guy, I enjoyed the feel of high quality and exclusivity.

Its price is around $60. Somewhat expensive for a laptop mouse, but given its exclusive features and the technical specifications, it still seems OK.

The final score is 88 out of 100 owls, and we give the “GM-M7800S” our Recommended Award.

Don’t forget to check out some other interesting mice and their overall ratings from expert reviews at TestSeek.com, these are the most popular:

• Logitech MX Revolution
• Logitech G9
• Logitech MX Air

Also check out the top 20 scorers from our mice category.

Thanks goes out to Gigabyte for letting us test this mouse.

Author: Manuel González Fernández

Translator: Vince Emiloz Sanderson