Nvidia GeForce GTX 260/280 Review

[Guest]

I quote (copy) from page 1:"And, yes, breaking with tradition, "GTX" is a prefix for this new architecture." so, the button to the next page says "The GeForce 200 GTX". Didn't you just say it was the new PREFIX? Dummies.

 

[Wheat_Thins]

This sucks, I was hoping that the 8X and 9X series would drop in price with the release of this card but judging from its crappy performance I don't see them dropping much if at all.......

 

[spaztic7]

Wow... all the pre benchmarks were wrong, as usual. This is a bigger letdown than the 2900xt from ATi!!!

Well, as long as the HD4870 has what ATi promises, they will be the new leader! Thank god I went with an X48 mobo and not some PoS 780i!

 

[Guest]

how much did nvidia pay tomshardware to slap a "recommended buy" label on this overpriced energy-hog?
this is just ridiculous

 

[SpinachEater]

OH DUDE, GTX 280 PWNS, ATI SUXORZ AGAIN!! WOOT!!

 

[fiskov]

Thank you for doing a test using Flight Simulator X as this is of main importance to me.. Even though it still look's i'll be using my 8800 Ultra's in SLI to play it.

 

[frodbonzi]

I wonder what the specs are if you put 2 or 3 in SLI though? Come on Toms, where are the numbers for that?

 

[Evilonigiri]

Hmm...I will give the benefit of doubt and say it's the drivers.

 

[bloodymaze]

With its low power consumption at idle and high-but-not-excessive consumption under load, we were relatively sure that with the GT200 Nvidia would maintain the reputation they’ve had since the GeForce 7800 GTX as a maker of relatively quiet high-end cards. We were wrong.


Ok honestly who cares about fan noises when games are running -- YOU HAVE SOUND GOING LOUDER THAN THE FANS!!! DUH! Lol -- Also these are beta drivers, crap crap crappy.

 

[frodbonzi]

OK, here's a REAL review of this card...
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3334&p=1

Has the SLI numbers as well... Toms, what the **** is the matter with you... this site is going downhill rapidly...

 

[aleluja]

What i think is they've merged 2 GPU chips into ONE. Die size tells about it too. It even bigger than HD3870X2. So it is basically some GX2 but with merged GPUs.

Just think of what monster could it be if ATI decided to make a 576mm^2 die GPU.

Tho, i'm no expert and this is how ,I think, NV did.

 

[spuddyt]

I want to see updated drivers, but even so, unless it shows 2900xt levels of improvement, its still a POS

 

[crockdaddy]

It would be fantastic if ATI actually "owned" NVIDIA. I am not a fanboi either. Simply put, the more these two companies leap frog each other the better it is for all of us. Crap, I can for around 150$ US have my choice of three great video cards, 9600,8800GT, 3870 ........ if only AMD could provide such competition in the CPU arena you might be able to buy an upper mid Intel chip for a bit under 200$ instead of the prices they charge now.

 

[gm0n3y]

That is just too much money, but it was the same with the 8800gtx when it came out. Hopefully we'll get the next incarnation of the 8800GT in the next couple of months (hopefully at < $300).

 

[enewmen]

I agree with most here. Yes, the 260GTX is better, but not good enough to upgrade from my 8800GT for now. Lets hope the 4870/x2 is the real 8800GTX killer I've been waiting for - for nearly 2 years.

 

[terror112]

2x4850 > GTX280 plus it is cheaper.

 

[hannibal]

Well the 9800gx2 is two cards clued together, and the 280 is single core, so it is definitely usefull in highend machines. I am guite sure that two 280's in sli is much better than two 9800gx2 in quad sli.
It's not a cheap card but it's the best you can get if you have a lot of money! The only thing that can be bad, is that 4870 X2 scales really well when using two of them at the same machine, but if you want to have the fastest thing in the earth at any cost possible, this is your best choise.

I am not personally ready to put this much money to GPU. But I did'n buy 8800 GTX either. Most propably I will take ATI:s new 4000 series card next, because I have somewhat limited budget. All I want to say is that this card is not so bad as many has said in these comments. It is most definitely the fastest single GPU solution you can get!
The temperatures were guite low, the power comsumption were not so bad, when considerin how big the chip is! There definetily was somethig wrong with the cooler, it was not slowing down the speed, so it's something that can be easily remedied.

This is not a "budget" card. Those will come later. And the article was actually good. It's points out that Nvidia has remedied the weak parts of it's previous generation. If you want to have a card that can run your 30 inch monitor, this is your best choice! The results at high resolution were guite impressive considering that the drivers are not so good at this moment. One two month later we can see better results in far more wide rage of games. Now it was easy to see that only few games were optimised for 280.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Wow....I thought someone said the 280GTX was supposed to PWN. Guess they were wrong.

And I thought the 4870 was supposed to have 480 shaders with the 4870X2 having 960 (480x2). Unless they posted different specs for the 4870 and the 4870X2.

But as far as I have heard the 4870 is equal in performance to a 3870X2 so a 4870 will be able to keep up in some areas (and do better than the 3870x2 in some) and the 4870x2 will pwn the GTX280 and for about $200 cheaper.

 

[spaztic7]

we will have to wait and see

 

[razor512]

SLI is a waste of money, if I spend twice the price, then I want twice the performance, not a 20-40% boost

 

[clay12340]

It seems like a fairly bold move on Nvidia's part to build a chip that is heavy on computing power and not quite so impressive in current market games. I wonder if it'll pay off and we'll see more future applications using that horsepower.

I'm guessing it'll be an expensive flop, but I can't say I'm surprised. Decent situational gains and some instances of lagging behind old hardware sounds a lot like lack of driver optimization to me. I'm guessing we'll see decent improvements when newer driver versions come out. I doubt they'll make the card worthwhile from a price/performance standpoint, but it'll probably give it a solid advantage over the rest of the field from a strictly performance standpoint.

 

[ahslan]

wow...this just shows how much Nvidia has slacked off since they began to dominate the high-high end video card arena...thank god ATI has put in some thought in their video card pricetags and can make it affordable to have a crossfireX setup that pwns...ATI FTW!

 

[Guest]

dam I really had high hopes... but this... it isn't even slightly better than a 9800 gx2...

how disappointing

 

[ilovebarny]

wow thats what we have been waiting for. vary disappointing. hopefully nvidia will come out with some decent drivers. and maybe they will lower the price a little. i wouldnt pay 650 for that card.

 

[araczynski]

major disappointment, even with updates drivers i too think the 4870x2 will eat it for breakfast. i'll wait to see what ati comes up with, and maybe for the first time in my life i'll pick ati over nvidia.