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XFX GeForce GTX 280 and 260 XXX Edition @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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XFX GeForce GTX 280 and 260 XXX Edition - The fastest GTX 280 and GTX 260 cards from XFX are evaluated. We’ll find out the highest playable gameplay settings in Crysis, Call of Duty 4, Age of Conan, and Race Driver: Grid. We highlight real-world gameplay differences between the XFX GTX 260 XXX and GTX 280 XXX Editions and find which is the best value.

If however, you play at 1920x1200 or lower, then the XFX GeForce GTX 260 XXX is clearly the better value for you. For $279.99 the XFX GeForce GTX 260 XXX offers a very high level of gameplay experience in every game, and is the real champ of this evaluation. A stock clocked version of the GTX 260 will run you as little as $240 after MIR with Free Shipping. Certainly not as big a cost delta as we see with the XXX version of the GTX 280. Considering the warranty that is extended on this highly overclocked XX card that allows you to install your own cooling system, you might very well find the GTX 260 XXX worth the additional cost.
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Do you think we're at the point where it doesn't honestly matter what you buy? That there is no overwhelmingly "Better" card, if you see what I'm saying?
 
Jack Hammer said:
Do you think we're at the point where it doesn't honestly matter what you buy? That there is no overwhelmingly "Better" card, if you see what I'm saying?
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This is what I said last week;

The fact is that gamers have never had a wider range of choices in quality 3D gaming video cards that span the $150 to $450 price points. One thing we hate to do at HardOCP is ride the fence, but after accounting for your video card budget, it is hard to make a bad choice currently.
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This week:

I do think we would be remiss to not point out the battle still raging on when it comes to the GTX 280 and the 4870X2. The cards trade blows back and forth, but given the pricing of a stock GeForce GTX 280 today, I think it is easy to say that the GTX 280 is a better value than the 4870X2. I think you might be able to boil it down to the 280 being the faster card while the 4870X2 will be the better looking card given some of the "free" CFAA Edge Detect modes (that is just my opinion though, YMMV). I myself now have replaced my 8800 GTX with an ASUS 4870X2. On the GTX 260 vs. 4870 front, things are not near as clear cut. Given that both cards produce tremendous gaming performances and are roughly the same price, we are hard pressed to call it anything but a tie. Most of our readers spend $150 to $350 on a video card. As of today, there is a huge selection of video cards in the $250 range that are great values no matter where your video card loyalties lie, if you in fact have any.
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I will let you make up your own mind. :)
 
It's interesting indeed. Just by looking on Egg, prices on new GTX 280's range from $420-$550 before the MIR. Honestly though, aside from modified BIOS and factory OC that you can do yourself, there is virtually no difference.
 
It's nice to see these reviews again after the drivers have matured (or not in the case of the 4870x2) to see where things stand. I'm really looking forward to the SLI/Crossfire review ya'll have promised us.
 
vengence said:
It's nice to see these reviews again after the drivers have matured (or not in the case of the 4870x2) to see where things stand. I'm really looking forward to the SLI/Crossfire review ya'll have promised us.
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We wanted drivers to mature a bit before we dove into CF and SLI. We think it has been long enough now.
 
aFive said:
It's interesting indeed. Just by looking on Egg, prices on new GTX 280's range from $420-$550 before the MIR. Honestly though, aside from modified BIOS and factory OC that you can do yourself, there is virtually no difference.
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Just coming down to warranty for me, now with the price drops. BFG, lifetime, no hassles.

Fans always fail...
 
Jack Hammer said:
Do you think we're at the point where it doesn't honestly matter what you buy? That there is no overwhelmingly "Better" card, if you see what I'm saying?
Click to expand...

On that note I think it all comes down to pure personal preference at this point giving the price of the 280 now, and the fact that it trades punches with the 4870x2. At this point the only thing keeping me from nVidia are the crappy chip-sets (I want a multi GPU solution).
 
Inglix_the_Mad said:
Just coming down to warranty for me, now with the price drops. BFG, lifetime, no hassles.

Fans always fail...
Click to expand...

So do these XXX cards have a "better" cooling kit on them? Or is it just a stock cooler with the bios revised set to high overclock?

I am almost sold on a gtx 260 however if I can just overclock one myself I would rather save the cash you know.

Also would I see a huge jump in my 1920 x 1200 games coming from a 8800GTX. Anyone here make that jump? I play Mass Effect, Bioshock, Crysis, WoW mostly.
 
CounTDookU23 said:
So do these XXX cards have a "better" cooling kit on them? Or is it just a stock cooler with the bios revised set to high overclock?

I am almost sold on a gtx 260 however if I can just overclock one myself I would rather save the cash you know.

Also would I see a huge jump in my 1920 x 1200 games coming from a 8800GTX. Anyone here make that jump? I play Mass Effect, Bioshock, Crysis, WoW mostly.
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It is a stock cooler, and it is fairly common practice for the AIBs to modify the BIOS fan speed settings.

I believe that you would see a better experience in Crysis, but not WoW or Bioshock. I don't know about Mass Effect. I havent played it (*ducks*).
 
Mark, great review. Lots of meat!!

Question on the 4870x2 performance dip. Did the dip occour during the night portion of the LeMans race?

it is just damn wierd. I was leaning towards a 4870x2, but lately things have looked worse for that card.

Can't wait for the SLI\Crossfire article, maybe a GTX260 SLI or 4850 CF is the way to go for 2560x1600? Let's wait and see ;-)
 
CounTDookU23 said:
So do these XXX cards have a "better" cooling kit on them? Or is it just a stock cooler with the bios revised set to high overclock?

I am almost sold on a gtx 260 however if I can just overclock one myself I would rather save the cash you know.

Also would I see a huge jump in my 1920 x 1200 games coming from a 8800GTX. Anyone here make that jump? I play Mass Effect, Bioshock, Crysis, WoW mostly.
Click to expand...

I made that jump. A very noticable difference in almost every game I play. Mass Effect smoothed out a huge amount, World in Conflict is a lot more fluid and WoW just looks gorgeous @ 1920 x 1200 with forced 16x Anti Aliasing.
 
Any word on any new revisions of the G200 chip? October is just a month away and we usually see some refresh in the next 2 months. I'm hoping we see a G200 55nm chip in the next month or so... I'm still holding out until then.
 
Crysis max playable settings for the 4870X2 have decreased compared to the 4870X2 article. Is it because of differing requirements with respect to performance between the reviewers?
 
skadebo said:
Crysis max playable settings for the 4870X2 have decreased compared to the 4870X2 article. Is it because of differing requirements with respect to performance between the reviewers?
Click to expand...

diff reviewer preferences, as mentioned earlier.
 
Inglix_the_Mad said:
Just coming down to warranty for me, now with the price drops. BFG, lifetime, no hassles.

Fans always fail...
Click to expand...

I have to say QFT + the ability to put a non-stock cooler on without voiding the warranty makes this my current favorite to put into a new machine I've been trying to get finished for the past 3 weeks.
 
SpeedyVV said:
Mark, great review. Lots of meat!!

Question on the 4870x2 performance dip. Did the dip occour during the night portion of the LeMans race?

it is just damn wierd. I was leaning towards a 4870x2, but lately things have looked worse for that card.

Can't wait for the SLI\Crossfire article, maybe a GTX260 SLI or 4850 CF is the way to go for 2560x1600? Let's wait and see ;-)
Click to expand...

At first, I thought it was related to the change from day to night, but after I looked into it, I discovered that the time at which the perf. drops happened did not correspond to the change from day to night and then back to day.
 
Hoax415 said:
I have to say QFT + the ability to put a non-stock cooler on without voiding the warranty makes this my current favorite to put into a new machine I've been trying to get finished for the past 3 weeks.
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XFX lets you do this now? I thought only EVGA did. Granted, I've been out of the video card loop for a few months...

:confused:
 
Zinn said:
XFX lets you do this now? I thought only EVGA did. Granted, I've been out of the video card loop for a few months...

:confused:
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Yep, all you have to do is keep the stock cooler so that if you have to rma, all you have to do is put the stock cooler back on and send it back.
 
As an owner of the XFX 260 XXX I can tell you that it runs cool. Fan speed at 80% gets 40C at idle and 57C at load. Room temp is 24C/71F. I don't even have my p180 yet. I should get even better temps tomorrow.

Fan speed does not sound louder than my other components at 65%. Stock speed is 40%.
 
Crucible1001 said:
As an owner of the XFX 260 XXX I can tell you that it runs cool. Fan speed at 80% gets 40C at idle and 57C at load. Room temp is 24C/71F. I don't even have my p180 yet. I should get even better temps tomorrow.

Fan speed does not sound louder than my other components at 65%. Stock speed is 40%.
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Wow 57 at load?

mine when it was working went to 85 at load, then again mine has been blue screening at 75 and now I just mailed mine back for RMA becuase anytime it goes over 75 degrees it reboots my computer
 
Well, they say temps can vary from card to card. I could have just gotten lucky. I am sure that mine goes up to 75 at 40% fan speed.
 
Another Great Review, and while I just upgraded my 9600GT to a HD4850 I'm in agreement about where the Chips Fall. With so many choices for a Quality Gaming Experience the only loser here, is the Person who doesn't have a Shiny New Video Card, no matter what their Gaming resolution is.
 
I like my BFG GTX 260 OC. It stays cool with a oc of 729/1458/2300. with the fan on auto it can and will get up into the high 70's C range. Set the fan at 80% or above and it nver breaks above 72c. Folds at 59 to 61c depending on room temp.
 
4870x2 hardware is more powerfull by a long shot Vs any single GTX280 in the majority of games played today. This review while interesting and valid for what it brings to the table has a select few games and cant be used exclusevely to decide which card will performs the fastest in the majority of games played today and the future for that matter.

Atm the X2's drivers are good, but not great. For example, the whql 8.8 drivers are slower than the beta 8.8s...go figure, but Im sure we will see improvements. This card just has too much potential. Im not sure why Kyle thinks the GTX280 is more powerfull. The 4870 is only in general 10 % to 15% slower than a 280 when you add in all games tested across all the reviews with 8xaa. Therefore how can an X2 that scales anywhere between 50 to 80% not be more powerfull ?
 
How about triple sli vs crossfire? Still about even playing field depending on the games plus prices are more inline now. Any top card from Nvidia and ATI is on even par. Its matter of what motherboard you have.

As for XFX never touch them again. I had 8800 gtx XXX and it overheated at factory over clock. Only way I could fix the problems is to buy aftermarket coolers which brought cards down 10-15 degrees (usually card furtherest from cpu is coolest by 5 degrees). This should have been tested by factory at price I paid. I prefer EVGA much better than XFX any day.

That all being said, I prefer Nvidia over ATI because of drivers (I know ATI has improved drivers over time). I have a nvidia chipset board so ATI is not in the cards.

Its a matter of preference. I feel its even playing field now.
 
Thanks for the review.

Since I plan to game on 1680 x 1050 (22" LCD) your review confirms that the GTX 260 is perfect for me.
 
260 on 1680x1050 must be super nice!!

Hell, 2560x1600 with 4xMSAA\16xAF with the 260 avg 43.3fps, I can't imagine what it will do at your res.

Will be 100% budar.
 
Last Friday, XFX tech support confirmed my GT280 XXX(2 months old from Newegg) is bad through in-house, bench tests. No advance replacement mechanism. No response until today about the replacement status. Today, I get a message saying I'll be contacted when the replacement will be sent out.

I guess it takes 2-1/2 days to acknowledge that a replacement will be sent out... in due time. I know they're not Cisco TAC or Dell ProSupport for IT, but this is not a timely update. This item is disabled and no longer available from NewEgg. Hmmmm

I'm curious about the failure rate for factory OC'd GT280 cards. Looks like the earliest I'll get a replacement is next week, unless it goes overnight. I wonder if they even have inventory for replacements.

Sent out Mon-9/15, received Wed-9/17, tested Friday-9/19, courtesy response Wed-9/24...

If someone from that department reads this post, maybe I'll get my card in a few weeks...
 
I have has to 8800 gtx XXX from XFX has to replace stock heatsink and cost of almost 200 bucks for both cards. I took heatsinks off and they came off with no force. Plus thermal paste on GPU was laugh too.

Solution: Was to do my own cards with thermaltake fan and themaltake heatsinks was massive improvement. Each card went down 14 degrees. No more crashes at factory overclock. I had to downgrade the speed to 600 from 630 GPU Core before crashing stopped. I now buy EVGA. Rather stay with the westcoast manufactures.
 
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