nVIDIA Launches GeForce GTX 280/260 Series

[Yoon]

Today, nVIDIA officially launched the GeForce GTX series (codenamed GT200), starting with the high-end cards, the GeForce GTX 280 and the GeForce GTX 260. This starts off the summer GPU battle, with rival ATi launching it's own Radeon HD 48xx series next week.


GeForce GTX 280

With the NDA lifted, several tech. hardware sites have posted their reviews on the GTX 280/260 cards. Links can be found below:

GeForce GTX 280/260 Reviews:

AnandTech
Benchmark Reviews
Chile Hardware
Driver Heaven
Elite Bastards
FiringSquad
Guru3D
HardOCP
Hardware Canucks
Hardware Secrets
Hot Hardware
InsideHW
LegitReviews
MADBOXPC
Overclockers Club
TweakTown
T-Break
Technic3D
The Tech Report
Tom's Hardware

After reading several reviews, there is no doubt that the GTX 280/260 cards are powerhouse video cards, as they clearly outperform the former high-end video cards, namely the GeForce 8800 GTX/Ultra, GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB, GeForce 9800 GTX, and the Radeon HD3870 X2. However, several reviews show that the GTX 280 is often trading blows with the 9800 GX2, with the GTX 280 leading in some games and the 9800 GX2 leading in others, sometimes by 10% or more. It may be the cause of underoptimized, early drivers. In any case, it's a problem, since the GTX 280 is priced at $649 USD, while a GeForce 9800 GX2 is currently going for ~$480 USD. There are rumors that the GTX 280/260 will go down in price once ATI launches the HD 48xx series, but this is only speculation. Also, the GTX 280 is not the "Crysis-killer" that everyone hoped it would be, as it seems to only manage playable settings at Very High, with AA disabled.

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From AnandTech. GTX 280 outperformed by 9800 GX2


From TechReport. Not quite the 'Crysis-killer'.

The one clear advantage that I see in getting the GTX 280 over the 9800 GX2 is that you won't have to deal with the SLI headaches that the 9800 GX2 often encounters, since the 9800 GX2 is really a SLI-ed 8800 GT on a single card.

PROS:
* Single GPU Card.
* Outperforms nearly all of the previous high-end cards, with exception to the GeForce 9800 GX2, which it seems to trade blows with.
* Consumes less idle power than the GeForce 8800 GTX & Ultra cards.
* True 1 GB video card.

CONS:
* GTX 280 is currently priced at $649 USD, whereas the GeForce 9800 GX2 is currently ~$480 USD.
* Consumes the most power at load compared to any other video card.
* Does not support the latest DirectX 10.1 (ATi's Radeon HD3xxx & upcoming HD4xxx series support DX 10.1)
* No new features compared to the previous GeForce 9 series.
* Not the "Crysis-killer" card that everyone had hoped.

I think I will wait on my GeForce 8800 GTX until the dust settles later this month. Up next week is the launch of AMD/ATi's Radeon HD 48xx series.

[Jaegar]

lol... I still find it amusing how Crysis is mostly famous for being the game nobody can play. Thanks for the quick summary. I like it. I'm curious about the next card from ATI now.

[Yoon]

Jun 16, 2008 15:12:13 GMT -5 Jaegar said:

lol... I still find it amusing how Crysis is mostly famous for being the game nobody can play. Thanks for the quick summary. I like it. I'm curious about the next card from ATI now.

Yep, Crysis is a system killer. Probably won't be a 'Crysis-killer' until next year's next gen. graphics cards come out.

Same thing kind of happened when Far Cry (same developers as Crysis) came out in early 2004. None of the high-end graphic cards at the time (Radeon 9800 XT & GeForce 5950 Ultra) could play it on max settings & resolution. It was only until the next generation video cards (GeForce 6800 GT/Ultra & Radeon X800 Pro/XT) that FC was playable on max settings & res.

I was hoping that the GTX 280 would offer a significant performance boost over existing high-end cards, but I guess my expectations were higher than I hoped.