First Official GTX 280 Review

[trt740]

I'm not sure a 4870 would be a upgrade to a 3870x2 am I correct won't they perform near each other as a 9800gx2 really won't be worth moving from to get a 280 or is my thinking wrong.

 

[btarunr]

4-5 fps difference is nothing to me. WAIT, where did you get that chart???

W1z gave it to us.

And yes, about that "GTX 280 idles at 25W" is BS. It idles at 125W. Some of us already read the review when W1z accidently published it on the homepage. It was of the Zotac GTX 280 AMP! edition. Of course it's taken off now while I extracted the charts from my browser cache.

 

[Megasty]

4-5 fps difference is nothing to me. WAIT, where did you get that chart???

The TPU reveiw. It is a slight difference 10-15 fps on 4x3. Its not overwhelming like all the hype indicated. We all know Crysis fecks up on 16x10 so we can't do anything about that.

 

[ShadowFold]

Damn I had to be asleep didn't I... Anyone got any screen caps

 

[trt740]

W1z gave it to us.

And yes, about that "GTX 280 idles at 25W" is BS. It idles at 125W. Some of us already read the review when W1z accidently published it on the homepage. It was of the Zotac GTX 280 AMP! edition. Of course it's taken off now while I extracted the charts from my browser cache.

AHHH I see. Im trying it figure out if it is worth it to wait for the 4870 or 280. i'm looking at price and it seems the 3870x2 is gonna be the best price /performace card at 284.00 won't both the 4870 and 280 cost more and won't a 4850 perform worse than a 3870x2 and I mean besides crysis.

 

[btarunr]

4-5 fps difference is nothing to me.

That exactly is the difference between 8800 GT and 9800 GTX in those charts. But still wouldn't that amount to a significant figure? Or should I say that 9800 GTX is worthless?

 

[trt740]

That exactly is the difference between 8800 GT and 9800 GTX in those charts. But still wouldn't that amount to a significant figure? Or should I say that 9800 GTX is worthless?

it kinda is worthless on just performance compared to a 8800gt some of the 9800gtx other function are very good , but perforamce wise it's not worth it over a 8800gt. Lets face it a 8800gt when overclocked can come very close to a 9800gtx even at high resolutions.

 

[btarunr]

We tend to forget that in certain crunch scenarios, 4~5 fps makes all the difference between "playable" and "slide-show".

 

[trt740]

We tend to forget that in certain crunch scenarios, 4 fps makes all the difference between "playable" and "slide-show".

your right it does 19 frames is not playable 23 frames is.

 

[ShadowFold]

On some games, but if I was getting 19fps-23fps on a game I would turn some settings down.

 

[trt740]

On some games, but if I was getting 19fps-23fps on a game I would turn some settings down.

I ment those as minimum frames

 

[Megasty]

AHHH I see. Im trying it figure out if it is worth it to wait for the 4870 or 280. i'm looking at price and it seems the 3870x2 is gonna be the best price /performace card at 284.00 won't both the 4870 and 280 cost more and won't a 4850 perform worse than a 3870x2 and I mean besides crysis.

Despite the 3870x2's AFR flaw its still a pretty good card & at that price its stuck right between the 4850 & 4870. I can't imagine the 4850 matching the 3870x2. Its neck & neck with the 3850x2. In this early driver stage we just can't tell. Right now with cat 8.5 my single 3870x2 can rip through anything except Crysis. My GX2 is incredible with 175.16 in everything except Crysis as well. But the PP kills that fight. By the time the 4870x2 comes out the 4850 may catch up to the 3870x2, if the x2 doesn't get any faster with the updates as well. The PP is just too close to call right now but the GTX280 needs to come down drastically to join that fight.

 

[largon]

256-bit gddr5 has the same bandwidth as the 512bit gddr3. spo thers no different in bandwidth this time around. it's just 2 different ways of meeting in the same memory performance point.

For what it's worth; GTX280 wields 20% more bandwidth with 512bit GDDR3 @ 1.1GHz (DDR-2200) than HD4870 with 256bit GDDR5 @ 900MHz (DDR-3600).

And yes, about that "GTX 280 idles at 25W" is BS. It idles at 125W.

I bet that 125W was the total system consumption @ idle.

 

[btarunr]

I bet that 125W was the total system consumption @ idle.

You win the bet. It indeed is:

Some cookies:

 

[v-zero]

Looks to me like this round will go to ATi then. If this much touted GTX 280 can only beat the 3870 X2 and GX2 by a few fps in most circumstances (Crysis and WIC absented) then it's a big fat failure at the expected £400 price point - the 3870 X2 at £200 looks like a bargain though - the drivers just keep maturing.
What this also says is that the 4870 X2 will wipe the floor with the GTX 280, I say this knowing that 4850's in CF clearly beat the GTX 280 in most circumstances... Add all this to ATi's volume ability and lower fab cost and we have a win for ATi.

 

[From_Nowhere]

Meh, I was hoping for more performance from the GTX 280. Seems like the 9800GX2's power, on one large GPU. Either way it is still quite the performer in Crysis based on that graph ^

 

[CDdude55]

I wonder what would happen if you put two of those cards in SLI.

 

[ShadowFold]

They will scale like crap im guessing.

 

[farlex85]

Probably they will scale quite good actually. The gx2 and latest 9600gt and such scale fantastically, near 100%. Looks like they've figured out the sli game, and I don't see why that wouldn't continue.

 

[theonetruewill]

Well I'm impressed with this card actually. Frames are great for a single gpu card- and the Crysis minimum framrate is VERY appealing.

 

[msgclb]

1600x1200 Crysis on High settings with 4x AA = 34FPS, World In Conflict 2560x1600 4x AA = 33FPS, more results below:

When I first looked at the 34 fps score PC Gamer showed for Crysis 1600x1200 GeForce GTX 280 I truly didn't understand its significance. I ran the Crysis benchmark on my system and got this...

DX10 1600x1200 AA=4x, 64 bit test, Quality: High, Overall Average FPS: 13.15

I then ran 3DMark06 at the default settings and got 15,733 3DMarks.

Then we had someone leak W1zzard's GTX 280 review and I noticed that my 8800 GTs were performing not much better than a single 8600 GTS. Something was afoul. After some experimenting I came up this...

DX9 1600x1200 AA=4x, 32 bit test, Quality: High, Overall Average FPS: 43.555
DX9 1600x1200 AA=4x, 64 bit test, Quality: High, Overall Average FPS: 42.78

DX10 is causing my low scores. But why?

Now thanks to W1zzard's unfortunate leak my system is about as good as a GeForce 9800 GTX. So did PC Gamer have the same problem that I had or are they running there benchmarks on an old AMD system!

I was chomping at the bit to get a GTX 280 but now it's time to cool off and let my money earn some interest while we give the W1zzard some time to turn his preliminary test into the product I respect.

 

[KainXS]

They will scale like crap im guessing.

Yeah thats what i was thinking too, but Nvidia ALWAYS does this, they're playing the GTX and ULTRA game all over again 500 and 600 dollar cards for the next 2 years again.

 

[newconroer]

It said it somewhere in there, or I assume when they say it plays at 34fps its an average, as that seems too low to be the high and too high to be the low. Thanks given.

@Shadow, you were expecting more than a 100% gain in benchies, or you were expecting more fps in Crysis? We all know Crysis is coded poorly (at least that seems to be the popular opinion) and as such should not be surprised if even the latest and greatest struggle somewhat w/ it. Its not lack of power, its lack of efficiency.

Indeed.

Oblivion can dog a GX2...how old is that now? EQ2 anyone?

Yeah thats what i was thinking too, but Nvidia ALWAYS does this, they're playing the GTX and ULTRA game all over again 500 and 600 dollar cards for the next 2 years again.

So? In today's world of PC gaming and custom computers, five hundred dollars isn't a shocking amount, especially for a GPU. There was a time when a new Voodoo card could cost you nearly $600.
Besides, there's plenty of cards currently on the market from both camps, that can handle 98% + of games with ease; and they'll all come down in price soon. It's not as if you haven't any options.


There's only three things I want to see these new cards do:

A) Have enough texture RAM, texture fill rate, and texture dump cycles in order to load all possible high resolution textures, at appropriate distance and in a proper amount of time. I.e. no more 'late loading' visuals.
B) Have enough shader power to render shadows and shadered textures at appropriate distance and in a proper amount of time. I.e. no more 'late loading' visuals.
C) Reduced stuttering overall due to better interfacing between the card's core, memory and it's relationship with the rest of the computer.


At this point, that's exactly what it looks like is going to happen. Neither camp has created a new architecture or changed the way GPUs are designed. We're still looking at Shaders, RAM capacity and RAM speed as the three main variables, and as we can see, ATI and Nvidia have basically boosted these attributes.