Shane Baxtor09 July 2008, 8:00 AM
If you find yourself looking for a new GT 200-based card but the $800+ price tag worries you, the lower clocked GTX 260 could be the card to get.
While the GTX 260 carries with it the same major features of the GTX 280 (ie. CUDA and PhysX), it is stripped down in certain areas to lower the price.
Stream processors are down from 240 to 192, Texture Addresses/Filters are also down from an 80/80 configuration to 64/64, and ROPs are down from 32 to 28. The memory bus has also taken a slight hit from 512-bit on the GTX 280 to 448-bit on the GTX 260. Moving away from a 256-bit/512-bit memory bus also means that you can’t have 512MB/1,024MB memory configurations. For this reason the GTX 260 carries a very unusual 896MB of GDDR3 memory.
As you would expect, raw MHz is also down. The GTX 280 Core/Shader/Memory comes in at 600MHz/1,296MHz/2,200MHz DDR, while the GTX 260 comes in at 576MHz/1,242MHz/1,998MHz DDR. With the particular card we have here, being an XXX version it does come overclocked out of the box. This brings us an increase to 640MHz/1,242MHz/2,300MHz DDR, making it faster than the standard GTX 280 in both core and memory.
Physically, the GTX 260 and GTX 280 are almost identical in size and appearance; both are dual-slot and have a black shroud covering the entire card from top to bottom. Outside of stickers, the only way to tell the difference is the lack of an 8-pin power connector on the GTX 260. Instead of an 8-pin/6-pin configuration, the GTX 260 carries with it a simple dual 6-pin arrangement.
Outside of the actual card being included in the box, we have a DVI to VGA connector, Component-out dongle, audio loop back cable, molex to PCI Express power connector, driver CD, the usual line up of paperwork along with a full version copy of Assassin’s Creed. However, what makes the XXX cards so special is of course the massive out-of-the-box overclock, as mentioned earlier.
What ultimately matters when everything is said and done is performance! The GTX 260 certainly doesn’t disappoint in this area. At resolutions of up to 1,920 x 1,200, for the most part it sits very close to an overclocked GTX 280 whilst being able to beat out a stock clocked one. At 1,920 x 1,200 under World in Conflict we see the GTX 280 with a 52 FPS average and the GTX 260 with a 51 FPS average. Similar things are seen in Unreal Tournament 3 with 119 FPS and 105 FPS between the two cards. The only time we really see the GTX 280 truly pull ahead is at 2,560 x 1,600 where it’s able to get a 96 FPS average in Unreal Tournament 3 while the GTX 260 pulls in a much lower average of 68 FPS. With that said, the GTX 280 does pull ahead of the GTX 260 at 1,920 x 1,200 under some games, so it isn’t a total write off for people with 24in monitors or smaller.
Really, when looking at the performance the GTX 260 is the card to get - especially if you’re on a monitor that does 1,920 x 1200 or below. The big price jump to the GTX 280 isn’t really justified for these kinds of users. What the GTX 260 does is bring us big performance and all those excellent GT 200 features at a much more reasonable price. The performance we get out of the GTX 260 and its price point not only makes this product extremely attractive, it also makes the GTX 280 simply way overpriced. XFX has done a good job with the GTX 260 and if you’re looking for something extremely fast out of the box it will be worth keeping an eye out for the XXX variant of the card.