ASUS ENGTX260 TOP

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,719
ASUS ENGTX260 TOP - The falling prices of NVIDIA’s latest video cards have brought the GeForce GTX 260 down to ATI Radeon HD 4870 levels. We have a brand new ASUS GeForce GTX 260 TOP to stack up to the Radeon HD 4870 and see how they perform in Crysis, Age of Conan, and Call of Duty 4.

The ASUS GTX 260 TOP is priced very competitively with the Radeon HD 4870 and stock clocked GeForce GTX 260 cards on the market, and can offer a better gameplay experience while certainly giving you a little more edge in the benchmark wars. The ASUS ENGTX260 TOP is a solid product.
Click to expand...
 
Another great review, looks to be a nice/solid card.
If only I had a case to fit one :eek:
 
Some of the "highest playable settings" have changed from previous reviews. Has the change in drivers really made THAT much of a difference?
 
Oberon said:
Some of the "highest playable settings" have changed from previous reviews. Has the change in drivers really made THAT much of a difference?
Click to expand...

Really? Can you please provide a link?

Very interesting review. Man sure makes it very hard to choose.
 
Thanks for the review. I had a GTX260 when they first came out, but returned it because I felt ripped off after ATI put out their cards.

I have a question about AA modes. I gather from the article there are 3 modes of AA on Nvidia cards:

1. MSAA - Multi sample

2. CSAA -?

3. QAA -?

Not sure that I understand the differences between them. Except that QAA is the most demanding? How do you change between these 3 modes? Maybe a screen shot will be helpful in the future?
 
parasitoid said:
I have a question about AA modes. I gather from the article there are 3 modes of AA on Nvidia cards:

1. MSAA - Multi sample

2. CSAA -?

3. QAA -?

Not sure that I understand the differences between them. Except that QAA is the most demanding? How do you change between these 3 modes? Maybe a screen shot will be helpful in the future?
Click to expand...

I believe all the answers you are looking for can be found here.
 
Wow, looks like the GTX is back in the game. So, with both sides supporting F@H now, is it possible to get a PPD number out of each card with the latest software/drivers? I think that this is a good selling point, and it seems to me that the GTX can out-fold the 4870, and that sounds like a great tiebreaker to me. Any thoughts on that?
 
What’s with the “female warrior” on the card?
Who ever decided it was a good idea to put a picture of a chick on a piece of computer hardware?

Would you expect to see that type of crap inside a server or workstation? Hopefully not!
Is Asus targeting the middle school market here or something? I wish [H] would chastise manufacturers for putting something like that on a serious piece of hardware.

And yes, a GPU folding comparison would be great.
 
It should be noted that the ASUS ENGTX260 TOP is factory overclocked which gives this card a hedge against the 4870 512MB.
When will see the review of the 4870 1024MB?
 
stonedwaldo420 said:
What’s with the “female warrior” on the card?
Who ever decided it was a good idea to put a picture of a chick on a piece of computer hardware?

Would you expect to see that type of crap inside a server or workstation? Hopefully not!
Is Asus targeting the middle school market here or something? I wish [H] would chastise manufacturers for putting something like that on a serious piece of hardware.

And yes, a GPU folding comparison would be great.
Click to expand...


I vote for pictures of hot chicks on more hardware personally.
 
stonedwaldo420 said:
What’s with the “female warrior” on the card?
Who ever decided it was a good idea to put a picture of a chick on a piece of computer hardware?

Would you expect to see that type of crap inside a server or workstation? Hopefully not!
Is Asus targeting the middle school market here or something? I wish [H] would chastise manufacturers for putting something like that on a serious piece of hardware.

And yes, a GPU folding comparison would be great.
Click to expand...

I agree. Personally I like the graphical themes of EVGA video cards. Cartoon women and fictional creatures just don't do anything for me...
 
RadXge said:
It should be noted that the ASUS ENGTX260 TOP is factory overclocked which gives this card a hedge against the 4870 512MB.
When will see the review of the 4870 1024MB?
Click to expand...

And if you actually read the review you would have seen that there was a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 in there too.
 
Why there are many changes on how playable the game was on this article compared to the article about AMD Radeon HD 4800 Series on hardocp :

1. Higher shadow quality for GeForce GTX 260 (Crysis)
2. Lower view distance for Radeon 4870 (Age of Conan)
3. Higher FPS with higher resolution for all card (Crysis - Apples-to-Apples)
4. High idle temp for Radeon 4870
 
adam_ilu said:
Why there are many changes on how playable the game was on this article compared to the article about AMD Radeon HD 4800 Series on hardocp :

1. Higher shadow quality for GeForce GTX 260 (Crysis)
2. Lower view distance for Radeon 4870 (Age of Conan)
3. Higher FPS with higher resolution for all card (Crysis - Apples-to-Apples)
4. High idle temp for Radeon 4870
Click to expand...

i followed your idea, and these are all i can find :
1. average fps of gtx 260 are not the same, i don't know why, but they decided to go down a frame but turn the shadow quality up now. ( 30.1 vs 29.2 now )
2. there's no fps shown on the old article, so i don't know.
3. you should read again, c'mon, it's not even at the same res.
4. the new article shows lower idle and load power consumption, so i guess they decided to lower 4870's fan etc.
5. maybe i still missed something, anyone?
 
still waiting for the real explanation, what's with these inconsistency.
 
wow, this totally made me take a 180 in my graphics card purchase.

i think im gonna get this card, or the evga Super clocked one, i had no idea they were this cheap, well, partially my fault for not keeping track of the prices, but i wanted a reason to go nvidia this time around, and here it is :)

keep up the good work :)
 
stonedwaldo420 said:
What’s with the “female warrior” on the card?
Who ever decided it was a good idea to put a picture of a chick on a piece of computer hardware?

Would you expect to see that type of crap inside a server or workstation? Hopefully not!
Is Asus targeting the middle school market here or something? I wish [H] would chastise manufacturers for putting something like that on a serious piece of hardware.

And yes, a GPU folding comparison would be great.
Click to expand...

Chicks on a graphics card? High end cards are like nice cars...they put chicks on those too.
 
nösferatu;1032924652 said:
still waiting for the real explanation, what's with these inconsistency.
Click to expand...

New drivers, only real explanation I can see for these inconsistencies...
 
nösferatu;1032924652 said:
still waiting for the real explanation, what's with these inconsistency.
Click to expand...

different review systems, different reviewer, newer drivers all around, I stand by the gameplay experience tested 100%
 
nösferatu;1032924652 said:
still waiting for the real explanation, what's with these inconsistency.
Click to expand...


What is funny about this is that if we DO NOT update drivers constantly and patch games we get our asses reamed out in these forums and across the internet by our detractors. So now when we do constantly patch and update, you are concerned that content evaluation changes over a period of time? I do however understand your concern and it is a valid point. I wish we could just test once and use that data for months/years, but it just isn't the case. The fact of the matter is that if you go back and look, I would suggest that canned benchmarks are much more susceptible to this change across time than actual gameplay is. We have seen NVIDIA and ATI for years make driver changes that were for the benefit of canned benchmarks and timedemos only. But to your point.

Keep in mind that our evaluations are subjective. We relate our gaming experiences. We jump though a myriad of hoops to objectify it as much as possible but it is not scientific evaluation. We do this with repeated runthroughs that give us data to back up or opinions as well as putting in our A2A comparisons as well. As Brent said, there are variables that can't be 100% controlled.

All that said, I do think that our evaluation process is very good when it comes to evaluating and comparing real world gaming experiences across a set of video cards. I do think we show you proper scaling. I do also know that what we are doing is way more "honest" than running a "scientific" canned benchmark that in no way represents the gameplay experience YOU will get sitting in front of your computer.

What we have done lately to help give us a better comparison across reviews and reviewers is to bring our reviewers very similar testing platforms. I would suggest that the evaluations are much more comparable than they were a year ago. Also, do to the fact that editors had different hardware in the past, we did not spread out the same segments of cards to different editors where we think it would impact cross-evaluation comparisons. We have only recently begun having different editors cover cards that span market segments. All our editors now are on 3.6GHz Intel Core 2 Quad machines with 4GB of RAM and Vista 64-bit with SP1.
 
HardOCP said:
In Crysis, the framerates of the ASUS ENGTX260 TOP and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 are for all intensive purposes the same at these settings. The ATI Radeon HD 4870 framerates however are below those of the other two. In fact its framerates spend a good portion of the time dipping below the red 25FPS line.
Click to expand...

What?

;)
 
Another Great Review, but since I committed to ATI this go around, just so I could Spread the Love, actually it was all about the Money. I am not griping mind you, it's just the size of the Die, It just scared the Crap out of me to think that the Die on the 260/280 was bigger than my . . . . . . . , but I digress.
All I know is that with my Xigmatek VD964 Cooler on my Brand Spankin new Gigabyte 4850, I'm seeing much lower Temps, and Gameplay is close enough to the 260 to keep smiling.
 
Jaguar Jim1 said:
Another Great Review, but since I committed to ATI this go around, just so I could Spread the Love, actually it was all about the Money. I am not griping mind you, it's just the size of the Die, It just scared the Crap out of me to think that the Die on the 260/280 was bigger than my . . . . . . . , but I digress.
All I know is that with my Xigmatek VD964 Cooler on my Brand Spankin new Gigabyte 4850, I'm seeing much lower Temps, and Gameplay is close enough to the 260 to keep smiling.
Click to expand...

Yeah, waiting until Oct-Dec myself, but if the die shrink comes in I'll have to scan the new scores because I think that'll be a huge difference, and since ATI is currently on the lower one they'll have less headroom.

Hmm, wonder who will pull what off...
 
4870 = $260, 260 = $260
4870 is about the same as a 260 performance wise (delta is in the noise IMO)

Conclusion : Consumer = Win

That this review really shows is that the consumer can now buy a piece of hardware that they know they are pretty much getting the best possible price for with the best possible performance. It doesn't matter which one you buy....YOU STILL WIN.
 
You guys totally surprised me with that 16AA in the AoC run. I was like "WTF typo".
 
Glad to see this, puts to rest a lot of the back and forth lately between the 4870 and 260.

Crazy to see the 260 cheaper on newegg than the 4870 too!
 
would we even bet talking about ati cards if the release day prices where like this? Nvidia really seemed to shoot themselves in the foot by letting ati under cut them in price by so much.
 
Jaguar Jim1 said:
Another Great Review, but since I committed to ATI this go around, just so I could Spread the Love, actually it was all about the Money. I am not griping mind you, it's just the size of the Die, It just scared the Crap out of me to think that the Die on the 260/280 was bigger than my . . . . . . . , but I digress.
All I know is that with my Xigmatek VD964 Cooler on my Brand Spankin new Gigabyte 4850, I'm seeing much lower Temps, and Gameplay is close enough to the 260 to keep smiling.
Click to expand...

The fact of the matter is that this is the first time in a long time there seem to be no wrong choices...
 
May I suggest, the reviewer(s) start including the power supply make/model info as well, please.

Awsome power compared to my measly 7900gt that was hot stuff just a few years ago.
 
If you fellows want to test AA in AoC try the Purple Lotus Swamp. I can't run more than 4x in there without getting fubar FPS using near full grass.
 
Ferrariman60 said:
Wow, looks like the GTX is back in the game. So, with both sides supporting F@H now, is it possible to get a PPD number out of each card with the latest software/drivers? I think that this is a good selling point, and it seems to me that the GTX can out-fold the 4870, and that sounds like a great tiebreaker to me. Any thoughts on that?
Click to expand...

My GTX 260 FTW edition folds 6800 points per day if it folds un-interrupted all day

Dunno about 4870
 
good review. Always a fan of the H reviews....

however, just some constructive criticism...

edit:

nevermind, someone beat me to it.
 
Now that's more like it. Thanks to ATI, nvidia is forced to lower price to match performance. Only thing that struck as odd about comparing one card to the other is the GPU temps. What a drastic difference in temps.

I'd have a hard time choosing one over the other.
 
I wonder what the review would be now, Just bough a EVGA GTX260 SC for about 150 AE. (IF everything goes through, maybe less if that rebate is good. we'll see). AMD need to step up and start competing again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top