The GTX 280 AMP! Edition is a factory-overclocked card with the core speed raised to a nice round 700MHz, the Shaders to 1400MHz and the memory to 2300MHz. By contrast, the junior GTX 260 has eight clusters of shaders, seven ROP clusters, and has all the clock speeds reduced slightly. As if that wasn’t enough the 512-bit memory controller in the GTX 280 has been reduced to 448 bits for the GTX 260.
Nvidia's GT200 design
The power requirement of the GTX 260 is quite steep, however, rising to 236W. It can get away with a single six-pin PCI Express power connector. The GTX 280 is in a different league, and sports both a six-pin connector and also an eight-pin one, just like the GeForce 9800 GX2.
AMD went down a similar route with the Radeon HD 2900 XT, but you could choose to plug in two six-pin connectors from your power supply if you didn’t want to overclock. With the big GeForce models you have to connect an eight-pin block or the system won’t start.
Zotac and the other Nvidia partners supply an adaptor in the package that connects to two six-pin plugs to give you the necessary eight pins, so that’s a total of three six-pin connectors you require to get this graphics card running. In all probability, you’ll be looking at a significant outlay for a new power supply on top of the startling amount of money most vendors want for the graphics card. Zotac is a new and relatively obscure brand in the UK, and pricing for the GTX 280 AMP!, regular GTX 280, GTX 260 AMP! and regular GTX 260 seems a touch steep.
The Zotac cards are straightforward reference designs so it makes sense to check out comparable models to get representative pricing, which starts at £215 for a GTX 260 and climbs to £320 for an overclocked GTX 260. The gap widens in GTX 280 land, where you can find, say, an Asus GTX 280 for around £330 and an overclocked version for £375. It’s absurd to call a £330 graphics card ‘cheap’ but it’s hard to see why you’d consider a GTX 260 when Asus charges just a £10 premium for the GTX 280.
COMMENTS
PC Gaming has gone mad.
Recently I put together a nice powerful Quad Q9450 system and 4Gb RAM, plus a not too shabby 8800GTS, the newer type with 512Mb and other changes from the 320Mb models.
Now imagine my surprise when I put Crysis on it, foolishly thinking that I could put the settings on at least High (not highest), as I watched my system grind to a painful halt. You could measure the frames per second in minutes.
I haven't built a PC system in about four years before this one after realising that I got into that flow of buying the biggest fastest systems. I stopped when it went all sour when the games required MORE than what the latest gfx cards could process.
So it seems things carred on getting sourer and sourer to the state of utter madness.
And now it seems even this ridiculously expensive state of the art card STILL doesn't allow crysis to run at high settings at high resolutions. How old is Crysis now? I dread to think how badly it performed when it first came out.
Just madness.
I'm not a console gamer generally, but something led me down the path of getting an XBox 360, then a PS3. I still cringe at some of the arcadey shallow-arsed titles available, but the new GTA4 seemed to justify my decision.
...Not that Crysis is a cerebral piece of gameplay in itself!
There is a clear 1:1 relationship when designing games for consoles, 1xConsole performance = 1xGame performance. Easy to achieve seeing as all consoles are created equal.
PC gaming has just gone insane due to the inherent anti-equilibrium (cool new word combo!). I'm surprised the whole industry hasn't crashed and burned due to this hardware-Software divide.
.
And what is it with those graphs? the GX2 and 8800GT (in different tests) seem to come out better all round. I'm presuming this is because GX2 is two boards in one package, but still isn't it cheaper than the 280?
So why is the 280 better then?
Or, for the price of a GTX280 you could buy an Xbox 360
... and have some decent games to play on it as well.
@Brian Miller
> Feel free to differ in opinion but if you do beware,
> your just plain wrong and likely stupid.
But may be able to spell ..
clarification about the test system
Yes the Crysis figures look weird and yes that probably says more about Crysis than it does about the GTX 280.
I tested with Windows Vista Ultimate Edition SP1 32-bit and Crysis was a fresh installation patched to v1.21
I'm a power loving gadget geek but even I don't care about this
because in order to use DX10 or higher I have to pollute my gaming system with Vista. Which means my 8800 still doesn't run at full capability because Windows refuses to make DX10 for XP Pro. Why the hell would I want to buy an even bigger card that I can't take advantage of because of poor policymaking for the software that drives it?
Hell, I'll just strap on another 8800 in SLI, still come out with decent power usage, and save an arseload of cash, perhaps even get some performance boost in framerate, even though particle effects and such are still going to be castrated.
And I don't wanna hear *jack* about DX10.1 unless it RUNS ON XP!
