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Hands On With Nvidia's New GTX 280 Card

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the that-time-of-year-again dept.

notdagreatbrain writes "Maximum PC magazine has early benchmarks on Nvidia's newest GPU architecture — the GTX 200 series. Benchmarks on the smokin' fast processor reveal a graphics card that can finally tame Crysis at 1900x1200. 'The GTX 280 delivered real-world benchmark numbers nearly 50 percent faster than a single GeForce 9800 GTX running on Windows XP, and it was 23 percent faster than that card running on Vista. In fact, it looks as though a single GTX 280 will be comparable to — and in some cases beat — two 9800 GTX cards running in SLI, a fact that explains why Nvidia expects the 9800 GX2 to fade from the scene rather quickly.'"

3 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Power vs Intel by the_humeister · · Score: 5, Informative

    Because graphics operations are embarrassingly parallel whereas regular programs arn't.

  2. Re:Vista cuts performance... by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 5, Interesting


    Why would Vista make the performance gains so much less? I could see XP running say 20% better with both cards, but why does Vista penalize the new card so much?

    Digital Restrictions Management strikes again, I guess...

    Vista: where do we want you to go today?
    TFA has some very weird numbers compared to Anandtech and Tomshardware and all the other real review sites that actually tell you all the details of their testing. The 280 looks more like it's 50-75% faster than the 9800GTX in most reviews, and most of those are done in Vista. Framerate in XP vs. Vista is completely even on a 9800 GTX with current drivers (the Vista slowdown went away a long time ago), except on Oblivion where Vista is about 20% faster for no apparent reason, but maybe the drivers Maximum PC used weren't the same as those used by the serious review sites, or maybe they have something wrong with their Vista install.
    --
    "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
  3. The scene has changed. by wild_quinine · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I used to be near the front of the queue for each new line of graphics cards. I used to wait just long enough for the first price drops, and then stump up. Cost me a couple of hundred quid a year, after the sale of whatever my old card was, to stay top of the line. Compared to owning and running a car, which I don't, owning and running a super-rig was positively cheap (in the UK). Some might call it a waste of money, and I have sympathy for that argument, but it was my hobby, and it was worth it, to me.

    This year I put my disposable income towards getting in on all three next generation consoles, and the PC will languish for a long time yet.

    I don't think I've changed, I think the market has changed.

    They're getting bigger and hotter, and no longer feel like cutting edge kit. They feel like an attempt to squeeze more life out of old technology.

    DirectX 10 as a selling point is a joke, with the accompanying baggage that is Vista all it does is slow games down, and none of them look any better for it yet. In any case, there are only five or six of them. You can pick up an 8800GT 512 for less than 150 dollars these days, and it's a powerhouse, unless you're gaming in full 1080p. There is no motivation to put one of those power hungry bricks in my rig. Nothing gets any prettier these days, and FPS is well taken care of at 1680x1050 or below.

    Game over, graphics cards.

    I wonder what will happen if everyone figures this out? Imagine a world in which the next gen of consoles is no longer subsidised, or driven, by PC enthusiasts...