EVGA GeForce GTX 570 HD Classified Video Card Review

By Bill Hentschell September 19, 2011

Final Thoughts & Conclusions

EVGA did it again and released a version of a great performing graphics card with the additional performance magic of the Classified label. Having a card with the Classified badge not only means this is the fastest factory overclock for any given GPU by EVGA but also that this card is manufactured to allow the enthusiast to take the card much much further.

We enjoyed the performance of EVGA’s top end version of the GeForce GTX 570 and found pushing this overclock further was as simple as dragging a slider in EVGA Precision software and clicking apply. Achieving our significant overclock did require a bit more work to figure out the thermals but now that you have read this you know our trick if you can handle the noise. Better yet get this card under water and you can run at least 31% above reference clocks silently.

Lately we have seen several cards from different manufactures that had different price points with the only difference being the amount of factory overclocking. In our opinion this normally is not worth the extra charge since these cards are so simple to overclock these days. However, the EVGA GeForce GTX 570 HD Classified is more than just a bit of a factory clock boost, it is basically an overclocked GTX570 on a GTX580 PCB with additional power support in the form of 8+6-pin PCI-E power and 6 phase digital PWM for 225 watts of available power. Further the addition of a display port increases the options of displays you can drive with this card over the NVIDIA GTX 570 reference design with only HDMI and dual D-DVI ports.

The only real knock against this card is that in order to add the display port they had to move one of the D-DVI port to make a side by side setup and blocking about half of the rear air vent. To ensure proper cooling air flow they added additional venting on top of the card which means it blows about 30% of the hot air into your case. If you have great case airflow this is probably not a problem but if you are pushing the overclock on other components this additional thermal load might limit your maximum performance. Again this is very minor and can easily be designed around through airflow management or potentially water cooling.

We would say the EVGA GeForce GTX 570 HD Classified 012-P3-1578-AR is a must buy at $349.99 shipped which is only $20.00 more than the reference model of the GeForce GTX 570 from EVGA and this card comes backed by a lifetime warranty. The display port and 8-pin PCI-E easily make up for that cost and the factory overclock is just icing on the cake.

EVGA GeForce GTX 570 HD Classified

Legit Bottom Line: If you want an enthusiast grade graphics card under $400.00 that can overclock like mad, EVGA makes your choice simple. The GeForce GTX 570 HD Classified is absolutely the version to buy.

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