Back at the launch of the GTX 260 and GTX 280 the cards were too expensive to be able to compete with AMD's latest offerings at the time. Now the prices have come down so far that the GTX 260 and HD 4870 are identical when considering price/performance. Zotac's latest addition to their product lineup offers 10% more performance than the HD 4870 at a 10% higher price. Which makes this a very fair deal. If you want 10% more performance than the regular GTX 260 or HD 4870, then just spend 10% more money.
It seems the combination of increased shaders and increased clocks is a winning team because our benchmarks show the GTX 260 AMP² Edition only 1% behind the regular GeForce GTX 280 - which still costs over $130 more. A one percent difference in gaming is so small that you will never notice it during game play. Of course you have to consider that the potential overclocking headroom on the GTX 280 will be higher since the chips have been better binned. But unless you are a hardcore overclocker those $130 will certainly be better invested somewhere else.
Overall I am very impressed with the improved GTX 260, even though the naming scheme sucks. There will be lots of drama on Ebay and other shops about incorrectly labeled cards. Other than the naming the only other thing that could be improved in my opinion is the fan noise. Slightly higher temperatures for less noise would be very acceptable I think.