We often encourage vendors to send us their custom variants of AMD and Nvidia’s GPUs. Custom designs can offer advantages over reference cards in terms of noise, cooling and speed, potentially making them more attractive buys. We rarely receive something as out-there as this ASUS GeForce GTX 570, though. With a massive triple-slot heat shroud, assuming your case can accommodate its gargantuan proportions, it’s actually a pretty compelling purchase. With a mild factory overclock over a standard GTX 570, this card delivers about as much muscle as any single-monitor gamer could want out of the box, with smooth frame rates across our entire suite of benchmarks. But what really impresses us is noise — the huge cooler is nearly silent — and overclocking potential. We managed an impressive 20% overclock using ASUS’s Smart Doctor program and while its performance wasn’t greatly improved across the board, in one test, Aliens vs. Predator (AvP), we saw substantial gains. With performance only slightly behind the GTX 580, virtually zero fan noise and a low price premium over stock GTX 570 cards, this monster card is definitely worth a look.
