As with all new things, NVIDIA’s GTX 400-series has seen its fair share of ups and downs. Both the GTX 480 and GTX 470 offer extremely good performance for the markets they are aimed at but the recently-released GTX 465 proved to be a disappointment. Eager to capitalize on people’s willingness to spend a good amount of money when it comes to performance, companies are looking for new and innovative ways to offer something that pushes the limits.
When it comes to board partners, they are constantly striving to make the GTX 400-series more appealing and now that we have seen enough iterations of the reference cards to fill a tractor trailer, things are a changin’. The GTX 480 has proven to be a tough nut to crack when it comes to pre-overclocking and adding any type of custom heatsink but its lower end sibling –the GTX 470- is a much more willing participant. As such, Palit, Gigabyte, Zotac and EVGA are just a few of the companies that plan to release or have already released overclocked and custom cooled GTX 470 cards. In this particular review we will be looking at the EVGA GTX 470 Superclocked+ Edition.
The “+” in EVGA’s card doesn’t come from any massive or frankly tacky aftermarket cooler but rather it is represented by a number of small changes EVGA has done to the reference heatsink in order to improve its overall efficiency. An aluminum backplate as well as an aptly-named “high airflow bracket” have been added which supposedly results in an approximate 7 degree drop in temperatures over a reference GTX 470. EVGA has also carried on the Superclocked tradition by bestowing higher clock speeds upon this card as well. Interestingly enough, the changes to the cooling assembly only result in a $10 price premium over the standard Superclocked edition.
We have long maintained that NVIDIA’s GTX 470 offers an excellent combination of price and performance even though its overall power consumption is on the high side for a card in its price bracket. Can EVGA’s take on NVIDIA’s reference design push things to the next level or are all of the added on bits nothing more than an elaborate marketing ploy?
When it comes to board partners, they are constantly striving to make the GTX 400-series more appealing and now that we have seen enough iterations of the reference cards to fill a tractor trailer, things are a changin’. The GTX 480 has proven to be a tough nut to crack when it comes to pre-overclocking and adding any type of custom heatsink but its lower end sibling –the GTX 470- is a much more willing participant. As such, Palit, Gigabyte, Zotac and EVGA are just a few of the companies that plan to release or have already released overclocked and custom cooled GTX 470 cards. In this particular review we will be looking at the EVGA GTX 470 Superclocked+ Edition.
The “+” in EVGA’s card doesn’t come from any massive or frankly tacky aftermarket cooler but rather it is represented by a number of small changes EVGA has done to the reference heatsink in order to improve its overall efficiency. An aluminum backplate as well as an aptly-named “high airflow bracket” have been added which supposedly results in an approximate 7 degree drop in temperatures over a reference GTX 470. EVGA has also carried on the Superclocked tradition by bestowing higher clock speeds upon this card as well. Interestingly enough, the changes to the cooling assembly only result in a $10 price premium over the standard Superclocked edition.
We have long maintained that NVIDIA’s GTX 470 offers an excellent combination of price and performance even though its overall power consumption is on the high side for a card in its price bracket. Can EVGA’s take on NVIDIA’s reference design push things to the next level or are all of the added on bits nothing more than an elaborate marketing ploy?

Last edited by a moderator: