When comparing GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1070 Windforce OC vs Palit GeForce GTX 1070 GameRock Premium Edition, the Slant community recommends Palit GeForce GTX 1070 GameRock Premium Edition for most people. In the question“What are the best GTX 1070 cards?” Palit GeForce GTX 1070 GameRock Premium Edition is ranked 1st while GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1070 Windforce OC is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Palit GeForce GTX 1070 GameRock Premium Edition is:
Palit GeForce GTX Premium Edition is one of the best GTX 1070 cards performance-wise. It scored a 3DMark Firestrike Score of 16575, which is one of the highest scores as far as GTX 1070 cards go. But this should come as no surprise since the Premium Edition of GameRock has slightly higher clock speeds than what may be found in other GTX 1070 cards (especially the Founders Edition).
Specs
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Pros
Pro Inexpensive
The Windforce OC version of the GTX 1070 is fairly inexpensive at the available price of $379.99, especially compared to the reference Founders Edition which retails at $450.
Pro Quiet operation with no coil whine
While there isn't any easily accessible data to back it up, many users have been reporting that there is no annoying coil whine, and that the card stays very quiet even when under a full load.
Pro 3 year warranty
Gigabyte offers a 3 year warranty, which means buyers can rest easy if this GTX 1070 ever malfunctions.
Pro RGB lighting allows custom looks for your graphics card
There are RGB lights on this GTX 1070, which helps it look premium and really helps complete your computer build (at least if you have a window on the side of your rig). There are 2 of these LEDs which provide decent accent lighting without being too distracting.
Pro Great performance
Palit GeForce GTX Premium Edition is one of the best GTX 1070 cards performance-wise. It scored a 3DMark Firestrike Score of 16575, which is one of the highest scores as far as GTX 1070 cards go. But this should come as no surprise since the Premium Edition of GameRock has slightly higher clock speeds than what may be found in other GTX 1070 cards (especially the Founders Edition).
Pro Relatively low noise levels for the massive fans it has
The GTX 1070 GameRock's cooler not only handles heat well, but noise production is very low, especially compared to other high-end cards. With a decibel rating of 29.6 in idle, the card remains essentially silent - this is because the fans don't spin up until a temperature of 50° C has been reached.
During full load, the fans can barely be heard with a noise production of 32.4 decibels. With these results, the Palit GeForce GTX 1070 GameRock is among the best in terms of sound production. For comparison: the Founders Edition produces 30.4 and 35.3 decibels in idle and under full load, respectively.
Pro Can have a second BIOS for higher speeds
The GameRock Premium Edition has a two-position slider which can be used to activate a second BIOS in case you want to try a custom BIOS for increased speeds.
Pro Great cooling solution
One of the main reasons that the GameRock Premium Edition is able to clock way past the reference card, is the cooler.
Measuring at 285mm long, 133mm wide and 46mm high it's simply massive (even bigger than the backplate). It has two 10cm fans which stop at around 55°C. The two fans sit on top of two heatsinks (most GTX 1070 cards have just one) joined by thick heatpipes.
Pro Great energy to performance ratio
The increased performance pushes this card from the standard 150W for GTX 1070's to 170W for this version. However, that is still more energy efficient than EVGA's most powerful GTX1070 (215W), which doesn't produce as much base & memory clock speeds.
Pro Very high clock speed increases
The Premium Edition of the Palit Geforce 1070 GameRock has a 1,671 MHz clock speed with a guaranteed boost speed of 1,873 MHz. That is a clear difference to the 1,506 MHz / 1,683 MHz of the Founders Edition. Palit also increased effective memory speeds from 8k MHz to 8.5k MHz (2x 4,250 MHz) . This manufacturer's main selling point is the performance they get out of NVIDIA cards and in this case as well they pushed the GTX 1070 to the limits of its design.
Cons
Con Plastic covering feels cheap
The GTX 1070 Windforce OC has some metal components in it, but the casing is plastic which makes it feel fairly cheap.
Con Factory overclock isn't noticeable in practice
Although GIGABYTE has increased the base clock speed of the GPU by 3% from 1506 to 1556 MHz and a boost clock from 1683 to 1746 MHz (+ 4%), these higher clock speeds only result in a negligible performance increases in gaming situations. Compared to the Founders edition, the GTX 1070 Windforce OC doesn't offer much extra in terms of performance.
Con Only available in Europe
Palit graphic cards are only sold in Europe. In the USA, some of these graphics cards are sold by PNY but unfortunately, the GTX 1070 Gamerock Premium Edition is not one of those.
Con Takes up a lot of space
Because of the big fans and large backplate on this card, the Palit Geforce GTX 1070 GameRock Premium Edition takes up two and a half slots. (Or in other words, effectively needs 3 available slots.)
Con The aesthetics are not very pleasing
The blue and white color scheme that the Gamerock Premium Edition has is not that visually pleasing. The retro-looking logo plastered in the back is not that pretty, either.