Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 GPU Reviewed

The Nvidia GTX 280 1GB GDDR3 (US$649) is a graphics card that features:

• GT200 Core
• 1400 million transistor count
• 65nm manufacturing process
• 602MHz Core Clock
• 240 Stream Processors
• 1296MHz Stream Processor Clock
• 2214MHz GDDR3 Memory Clock
• 512-bit DDR Memory Bus
• 141.7GB/s Memory Bandwidth
• PCIe ver 2.0 x16 interface

Tom's Hardware likes the GTX 280, having improved GeForce 8 architecture, overall performance, very low power consumption at idle, and accelerated CUDA software:

"The new very-high-end GTX 280 from Nvidia ($650) suffers a little from comparison with the 9800 GX2, which regularly bested its performance in tests, despite the inherent and irremediable drawbacks of bi-GPU cards. But in reality, the real threat is from the card's "little sister," the GTX 260, especially since the price will almost buy you two GTX 260s to run in SLI!" [Tom's Hardware | Nvidia GeForce GTX 260/280 Review]

HardwareZone.com gives the GTX 280 4 out of 5 stars:

"For all this, NVIDIA is asking quite the premium for its new high-end flagship, with the GTX 280 priced at a whopping US$649 at launch, far beyond any existing high-end GPUs now. By contrast, the GTX 260 will be available for US$399, which once you consider the likely performance delta between the two, looks like much better value. If getting the best is your main prerogative then the GTX 280 is exactly that, but you'll have to pay dearly for it. The key to really take advantage of the GTX 280 is cutting edge games at extreme quality settings as well as GP-GPU computing tasks, so keep these in mind and you won't be disappointed. For all other purposes and needs, the GTX 280 would easily be an overkill." [HardwareZone | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 1GB GDDR3]

The GeForce GTX 280 is a nice card, but the GTX 260 would probably be the much more attractive one, considering its very attractive price at around US$400.

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