ASUS ENGTX260 TOP 896MB (NVIDIA GTX260)
Test Setup & Overclocking
Published: 8th July 2008 | Source: Asus | Price: £220.00 |
Test Setup
A common mistake made when benchmarking graphics cards is that the rest of the PC system isn't sufficient enough to test the GPU to its limits. This results in a bottleneck situation, where the system can only run at the speed of its slowest component. For this reason, the test configuration chosen below has been specially selected to give each of the graphics cards on test the headroom they require in order to produce the best results.
A selection of games and benchmark suites has also been chosen to test each of the cards with several game engines. Each of the cards will be run at both low and high resolutions with varying levels of texture filtering to represent the use of the card with both small and large screen sizes.
3DMark05
1024x768 / 0xAA / 0xAF (Default)
1920x1200 / 4xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / 4xAA / 0xAF
3DMark 06
1280x1024 / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / 4xAA / 0xAF
3DMark Vantage
1280x1024 / Performance Mode
1900x1200 / Extreme Mode
1280x1024 / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / 4xAA / 0xAF
3DMark Vantage
1280x1024 / Performance Mode
1900x1200 / Extreme Mode
Quake4
1280x1024 / Ultra / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920x1200 / Ultra / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920x1200 / Ultra / 4xAA / 4xAF
Unreal Tournament III
1280x1024 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
Call of Duty 4
1280x1024 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920x1200 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920x1200 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
F.E.A.R
1280x1024 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920x1200 / Max / 4xAA / 0xAF
1280x1024 / Max / 4xAA / 4xAF
1920x1200 / Max / 4xAA / 0xAF
BIOSHOCK
1280x1024 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1280x1024 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
Crysis
1280x1024 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
1920x1200 / DX10 / High / 0xAA / 0xAF
At present, the GTX260 only really has competition from the red side of the fence in the form of AMD's HD4870. However, as samples have been extremely tight since its release, the nearest cards we have for comparison is the AMD 4850. Obviously, this isn't the fairest of competitions, as there is a significant price difference between both cards, but it will certainly be interesting to see if the GTX260 is worth the extra cash over the 4850 when placed on our CPF (Cost Per Frame) scale.
Another area of interest as mentioned over the previous pages is just how well the factory overclocked ASUS ENGTX260 TOP performs in comparison to a GTX280. With a higher clock and memory speed, can it match the performance of the GTX280 at a more reasonable price?
During the benchmarking phase, we will be using the following prices extracted from aria.co.uk on 09/07/08 to produce our CPF graphs. Please remember that these graphs are static and only represent a snapshot of the market at the time of this review.
MSI 9800GTX - £184.99
ASUS 9800GX2 - £317.19
MSI GTX280 - £422.94
ASUS 4850 - £123.90
ASUS GTX260 - £223.19
Overclocking
Using the NVIDIA nTune utility along with its inbuilt stability tester to test for artifacts, the maximum overclock we managed to achieve on the ENGTX260 was 701mhz /1265mhz /1510mhz for the GPU, Memory and Shaders respectively.
This gave a reasonable 7% increase in our 3DMark Vantage score (9555 to 10224) at "Performance" settings and a fairly similar increase of just over 8% at "Extreme" settings. Maybe not enough to top the GTX280...but still quite close.
Now let's get on to the benchmarks...
Most Recent Comments
Not bad, 280/260 still look lame compared to the gx2...
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Originally Posted by name='Mr. Smith'
Not bad, 280/260 still look lame compared to the gx2...
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Originally Posted by name='Jim'
Yeah it still rules the roost. Not sure if you've seen recently though but they are dropping off retailers sites like dead flies.
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Oh, nice to the point review!
Edit: Actually - I'm going to have to call you on the conclusion
Now that just ain't true is it padre? GX2 is kingWhile the GTX280 may still be the star of the show when it comes to performance
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Originally Posted by name='Mr. Smith'
Edit: Actually - I'm going to have to call you on the conclusion Now that just ain't true is it padre? GX2 is king |
GX2 has been wiped off the face of the earth dude
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Originally Posted by name='Jim'
Give NVIDIA a call and ask them about the GX2...the response will be "WTF is a 9800GX2...we never made that. Look, check out (insert retailer), nothing there is there...eh...eh? Get with the times man and buy a GTX280 FTW!"
GX2 has been wiped off the face of the earth dude |
Look, you can't argue with your pretty graphs can you? GX2 outperforms the 280. I believe the word you are looking for is pwnt.
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Originally Posted by name='Mr. Smith'
Well, whatever. My Dad would batter your Dad so stfu nublet lmfao.
Look, you can't argue with your pretty graphs can you? GX2 outperforms the 280. I believe the word you are looking for is pwnt. |
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Originally Posted by name='Jim'
What type of batter are we talking about here? I've heard rumours that your dad is that way inclined.
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Prob best for both of us this conversation ends here? Lets just agree I'm right? Cool. nn
Woah, weird thread! 
<----- Was a weird thread.
Nice review Jimbo, not too bad a card.
I love my 9800Gx2. You can see why Nvidia wants it gone.. they were hopeing the GTX 280 would beat it. So really they shot themselves in the foot.
<----- Was a weird thread.Nice review Jimbo, not too bad a card.
I love my 9800Gx2. You can see why Nvidia wants it gone.. they were hopeing the GTX 280 would beat it. So really they shot themselves in the foot.
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Originally Posted by name='Toxcity'
Woah, weird thread!
<----- Was a weird thread.Nice review Jimbo, not too bad a card. |
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Originally Posted by name='Toxcity'
I love my 9800Gx2. You can see why Nvidia wants it gone.. they were hopeing the GTX 280 would beat it. So really they shot themselves in the foot. |
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Originally Posted by name='Jim'
Yeah...cleaning up Smithy's mess
Yeah deffo. |
Not keen on Nvidia this round really, the HD4850 is king of price performance but I want to see how the HD4870 does versus
I got a couple on the way next week (crosses fingers). Would still prefer to have the GX2's in Quad SLI - that setup just looked the dogs danglies tbh.
Gr8 review Jim as always.
. Would still prefer to have the GX2's in Quad SLI - that setup just looked the dogs danglies tbh.Gr8 review Jim as always.
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ASUS ENGTX260 TOP 896MB Review