BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX - BFGTech's best single-GPU video card is with us today, ready to be put through its real world gaming paces. We compare it to the stock-clocked GTX 280 as well as ATI's best offering. We had some results that we did not expect and ones that might surprise you as well!

Of course, the question is: Is it worth it to spend the extra money on a BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX, rather than a standard NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280, for a nearly indistinguishable difference in gameplay? We don't think that it is. A possibly bigger question is whether or not the now lower price of the BFGTech video card can overcome the great value presented by the ATI Radeon HD 4870. The new Radeon is clearly less powerful than the GTX 280, but it is so much cheaper, its value goes a long way toward mitigating its less impressive performance. Obviously the overclocked OCX is going to afford you benchmark monkeys better scores.
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Nice review again, I do agree about the value of what it offers. Only if Nvidia launched the 280's at the 449-499 price range, they would definitely of scored more praises.
 
Good review. Again I'm saddened that there simply aren't any games out there to push these cards. But this of course, isn't really [H]ard's fault. And is also the reason I'll be sitting on my 2 G92s for a while longer.
 
i just bought this card... I've been using an 8800GTS 320MB forever... got it for $460 delivered to my door. I'm pretty happy.

Yeah the 4870X2 is coming out... but I'm just not excited about it.
 
vengence said:
Looks like another 1600x1200 typo on the gifs?
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I think you are correct, in the article we have the following text:
Meanwhile, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 put in an impressive showing, considering its price range. At 1920x1200, we were able to run with 16X AF and "High" texture, shaders, physics, and water quality settings, and the rest of the in-game settings at Medium.
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As we can clearly see, the Radeon HD 4870 had the resolution at 1920x1200, during tests.
But is really confusing, because in the gifs is 1600x1200.
 
I have messaged Mark and Brent to this thread. Brent is moving today and will be gone for a week. Looks like a piss poor job to me though. We will get to the bottom of it, but will likely be next week. Brent was the editor not me, so I can't answer for a lot of this currently with Brent out of pocket. Mark is online though and should be taking up the slack since it is his article.
 
The table should reflect the ATI Radeon HD 4870 running at 1920x1200 in Crysis. I apologize for the confusion there. That error has been corrected and should now read correctly.
 
Well, I can't really see any reason to upgrade from my 8800GTS's in SLI right now. The HD 4870 has sure helped the enthusiast forcing Nvidia to drop the prices though. If this keeps up, in about six months I will be ready to upgrade my GPU's along with my motherboard, hoping for some competitive prices.
 
Typos should be fixed now. I apologize for the very poor quality of the article's formatting and outright shitty errors. It should have never been published in that form. It will not happen again.
 
Mark_Warner said:
The table should reflect the ATI Radeon HD 4870 running at 1920x1200 in Crysis. I apologize for the confusion there. That error has been corrected and should now read correctly.
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I just read the review for the first time five minutes ago (7:51 PM EST here) and it still says 1600x1200 for me :(

Other than that, looks like a great review, though I wish it could have included more games. Not really necessary though as this is just an overclocked version of the GTX 280 which was reviewed earlier with more games.

Looks like a great review and a great card - if prices fall any farther I might get one!
 
The thing to notice in the above image is somewhat of a curiosity. The image is almost identical from top to bottom, except for a discrepancy around the electrical junction box in the adjoining room. On the bottom half, rendered by the ATI Radeon HD 4870 you can see electrical wires running into the box from the floor and the wall, similar to the wires on the wall on the right hand side of the image. But on the top half, rendered with higher settings on the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX, the wires running to the junction box are missing. We tested this scenario multiple times, and the behavior persisted on both the BFGTech GeForce GTX 280 OCX and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280.
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Do we have anymore insight into the differences, is it a nvidia problem or a crysis problem?

I noticed some similar differences between nvidia and ati in crysis screenshots in the recent ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series Custom Filtering article you guys did.
 
LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
I just read the review for the first time five minutes ago (7:51 PM EST here) and it still says 1600x1200 for me :(

Other than that, looks like a great review, though I wish it could have included more games. Not really necessary though as this is just an overclocked version of the GTX 280 which was reviewed earlier with more games.

Looks like a great review and a great card - if prices fall any farther I might get one!
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All graphics fixed. Finally got them all mailed to me.

What games would you like included....wait, let me help you out, those cards will play them at 1920 or 2560. We have hacked down the games list because it tremendously expensive to tell you just that. No real difference than saying you would have liked to have seen Quake 3. It will run it.....

I don't know if NV prices will come down much more for a while. I got a feeling now is a pretty good time to jump.
 
I'm really excited about the new Radeon, its good to see ATI putting up some sort of a fight, i know that they are a long way from the GTX 280 but either way, they are at least showing what they can do.

I'm pretty sure that if they keep this line of work, soon Nvidia will have some serious competition.
 
GTX 280 is a good card and I tend to agree with [H]ard.

An HD 4870 or an overclocked GTX 260 would be fine for most. Those @ 1680x and under would probably do well with an HD 4850.

You can get a regular GTX 260 @ Newegg for 229usd with rebate right now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127361

That @ 650-690 on the core would be a very good option. My card flies @ 730|2600. The only thing it can't handle is Crysis all Very High @ a decent resolution. I can run all high on the DX 9 path just fine.
 
Brent/Mark:

Have you tried testing with just 1xAF in Crysis? Do you think it's worth the performance drop (which is actually quite large) going to 16xAF? To me, the performance drop going to 16xAF just isn't worth it and I'd rather bump up shader and texture quality to very high.
 
Blacklash said:
That @ 650-690 on the core would be a very good option. My card flies @ 730|2600. The only thing it can't handle is Crysis all Very High @ a decent resolution. I can run all high on the DX 9 path just fine.
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Set post processing to high instead of very high and your framerates will improve by 30%.

There's not much of a difference between high and very high post processing, both visually and performance-wise, unless shaders are at very high. When shaders are at very high, post processing gives the world a more brownish/yellowish hue, plus you get the sun rays shining through the trees.

16xAF is also a huge performance killer -- it causes up to a 20% drop in performance.
 
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