Introduction
Ever since I got the 280, I had promised for a Review, but due to my laziness and some part of my office I got busy, having said that, I'm presenting the triple delight today.
GTX 280 is the fastest single gpu (yea 4870x2 got the fastest card tag now), it is the elder sibling of GTX 260, has more memory, shaders, but has the same bus ratio though.
It was introduced at a price tag of $650 here but after a superb show from ATI with their 48XX series the dust settled with the price tag on $450 for 280.
The TRI SLI, is intended as the fastest possible graphics solution from Nvidia, its sole competitor is 4870x2 Crossfire X. And its certainly not intended to be used on 1680x1050 as you will see through this review!
[BREAK=Specifications & Info]
Some Specifications (Nvidia)
Processor Cores 240
Graphics Clock 602 MHz
Processor Clock 1296 MHz
Texture Fill Rate 48.2 billion/sec
Memory Specs:
Memory Clock 1107 MHz
Standard Memory Config 1GB GDDR3
Memory Interface Width 512-bit
Memory Bandwidth 141.7 GB/sec
The 512bit interface is what we have always been talking about and the GT200 brings it into usage.
Some More information and Pictures from Hardware Secrets.
With 1.4 Billion transistors GT200 is almost 4 times the die size compared to a dual core penryn chip!!
[BREAK=Contents]
The EVGA GTX 280 comes with the following in the box,
The Card itself ,
Installation disk with EVGA Precision,
1 6 Pin PCI-E power cable,
1 8 Pin PCI-E power cable,
DVI to VGA Adaptor,
DVI to HDMI Interface,
Documentation for setting up the card in various configurations i.e. SLI/TRI SLI,
And the new EVGA bezel sticker!
The packaging & Content that Evga offers definitely stands out!
[BREAK=More Pictures]
[BREAK=Test Bench & Methodology]
The following system was used for the benchmarks
Hardware -
3 x EVGA GTX 280 SSC @ 648Mhz (Core) / 1404Mhz (Shaders) / 2322Mhz (Memory)
Processor : QX9650 3.0Ghz @ 4.0GHz (400x10)
Motherboard: EVGA 780i FTW
Memory : OCZ 2x2GB FLEX II 1150 @ 800Mhz 4-3-3-8 2T
Monitor : Samsung 216BW 22" Maximum Resolution 1680x1050
PSU : Corsair 1000HX 1000W PSU
Software -
Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate x64 with SP1
Nvidia Forceware 177.83
Games Used in the Review were : GRID, Oblivion, Crysis & Unreal Tournament 3
3D Mark Vantage was the Synthetic benchmark used.
GRID & Oblivion were tested using FRAPS. Unreal Tournaement was benched using this
Crysis was benched using the Crysis Benchmark Tool (1.0.0.5).
3D Mark Vantage was benched with Phys X enabled.
[BREAK=GRID]
So enough talking, lets present some numbers.
GRID is the latest Racing game from Codemasters. It has a number of events, along with a lot of Cars to race with. Its based entirely on circuit racing, unlike Need for speed (before pro street) based on street racing. The game looks spectacular with all settings, enabled. The circuits are very detailed and car damage is very realistic!
One of the biggest problems that I faced while benching was to redo the same sequence again. The game is very dynamic and hence to reproduce the same run again manually, is a pain. I tried my best to do all the runs as close as possible, I tried not run into cars or any of the objects in the Track. I raced with a 350Z in the 3rd Sponsor event in Japan. The test was done using FRAPS with a 60 second timer.
The in game settings were maxed out, and the game was tested with 16XQSAA and 8XQSAA enabled from within the game, 16XAF was enabled from the Nvidia control panel.
It can be seen here that SLI is performing better than TRI SLI at the maximum resolution of my computer. The gains from a single card to SLI are much more prominent i.e we see a 42% increase in performance here at 16XQSAA.
[BREAK=Oblivion]
The Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion is a RPG and was launched in March 2006, even being 2 years old it is still able to stress graphics hardware. Back in the day when it was launched it could comfortably be called as the Crysis of its time
. The game is play is fluid and very detailed. And the visuals can be easily compared with the latest RPGs. The environment in Oblivion is dynamic with a lot of rendering being done on the screen.
The version benched was 1.2.0.416, the settings preset used was Ultra High, and all settings in game were maxed as well. The game was tested with 16XQAA and 8XQAA with 16XAF (from the Nvidia Control Panel) and HDR enabled from in game. Oblivion was also tested with FRAPS, I loaded a saved game from a point in the Game when I have just come out of the Prision Sewers. I start running towards a point in the game where I have to go through water and then some grass. I tried to make sure that the run was close in all runs.
The Oblivion results did come out weird, I saw the best results with a single 280, and I had no performance increase with SLI or TRI SLI. It seems even with the processor on 4Ghz the cards are bottlenecked!
[BREAK=Unreal Tournament 3]
Unreal Tournament 3 by Epic Games is a FPS game with multiplayer support. It was launched for PC in November last year. Many games use the UT3 engine. The UT3 engine is able to pull up some really good visuals without stressing the system a lot.
I used the Unreal Tournament 3 Benchmark tool for benchmarking the game. The performance settings were maxed to 5 each and the game was tested in DX 10. AA and AF were applied from the Nvidia Control Panel. I used DM - Shangrila Fly from the benchmark tool for the tests.
We again see the same trend as we saw with GRID, the SLI results are the best, even bettering TRI SLI results. The jump from a single card to SLI is there but is not as much as what we saw in GRID.
[BREAK=Crysis]
Crysis by Crytek, has been one of the most talked about games in the recent past. Crysis has very comfortably been able to pull down fps in teen's with the latest and greatest hardware coming out ever since its launch. Even the fastest GPU offering by Nvidia is slaughtered by this game on my 2 MP display. But that doesn't mean that the game is badly coded (many would disagree), once you look at the visuals, the performance drop is justified!
I used the Crysis Benchmarking Tool, with game patched up to 1.2.1. The game was benched on V.High settings with no tweaks or config files. AA was applied through the benchmark tool.
Here we see the best scaling in all the games so far. Crysis is able to push the three configurations to its knees.We see a 58% increase in performance going from a single card to SLI in 16XQAA and then a 27% gain adding the 3rd Card. With no AA the system seems to be getting cpu bottlenecked in TRI SLI. However going from a single card to dual we see a good 72% improvement!
[BREAK=3D Mark Vantage]
Vantage is the latest installment from Futuremark, it is considered as the finest synthetic benchmark, but then I use the word synthetic. It does give some good insight about a system.
Here I do the benchmark in Performance preset. All other settings are on default.
[BREAK=Overclocking, Sound effects & the heater!]
Like most Nvidia cards, the GTX 280 overclocks pretty good. The stock clocks on the EVGA GTX 280 SSC are 648/1404/1161, I was able to take the cards to 725/1458/1325 (core/shader/memory), which were my highest stable overclocks. Those clocks are pretty significant considering the stock card is clocked 602 on the core (20% Overclock). And for the SSC its a 12% overclock. The vantage scores did show a decent rise in all three configs.
I usually keep my cards at 80% fan speed while playing games as I dont want the auto cooling to kick in the higher fan speed until I helplessly see my cards reach 80C, with 80% fan speed I have never seen my cards go past 74C, thats with hours of gaming.
At those speeds the 3 Cards do become noisy, and if unless you have loud speakers or headphones the sound may bother you.
Another good use that the TRI SLI can be put to would be heating the room in winters, lol literally the system used to heat up my room significantly in almost an hours time after playing games. However when in 2D the cards did remain cool, thanks to Nvidia super low 2d clocks (which did create a fiasco before 177.79).
[BREAK=Conclusion]
After staying with TRI SLI for almost 2 weeks, it was heavenly but with a pinch of salt. As could be seen the cards, if not pushed dont really show their power, the only game that could really push the cards was Crysis and that too on 16XQAA.
Such power can only be recommended for people playing on 30" 5Mp (2500x1600) displays, cause any other resolution and the cards wont scale beyond SLI.
However 280 SLI was much different, more often than not the cards scaled decently. The reason we couldn't see much higher scaling was the resolution for which the cards were tested on. I would say even on 1920x1200 the cards would see much better scaling.
And having seen the results I can happily recommend anybody to get a single 280 for 1680x1050 as it can handle any and every game you can throw at it for that resolution, and if we take out crysis I would think a 280 SLI should be good enough for all the way to the max resolution people can game on!
The cards dont come cheap but they do perform as well. I would always go with a single fast gpu than getting 2 slower gpu's to equal that. But if the price difference is significant, then it does become interesting.
ATI gave us some really great cards this summer, bringing Nvidia back to their senses. Good competition always keeps the market healthy for consumers.
Its almost 5 in the morning here, and I'll keep the review till here, I'll try to add some more info tomo, but please feel free to comment or criticize. This is the biggest review I have written so far, and I dont expect it to be perfect!
Pros :
* the best money can buy
* 1Gb Memory with 512Bit bus does make it future proof for texture intensive games
* Power Consumption has been well balanced for Idle clocks!
* Overclockers delight (doesn't require fancy coolers to overclock well)
* Powerful stock cooling does the job well
Cons
* Costly
* No DX 10.1
* Power hungry!
Ever since I got the 280, I had promised for a Review, but due to my laziness and some part of my office I got busy, having said that, I'm presenting the triple delight today.
GTX 280 is the fastest single gpu (yea 4870x2 got the fastest card tag now), it is the elder sibling of GTX 260, has more memory, shaders, but has the same bus ratio though.
It was introduced at a price tag of $650 here but after a superb show from ATI with their 48XX series the dust settled with the price tag on $450 for 280.
The TRI SLI, is intended as the fastest possible graphics solution from Nvidia, its sole competitor is 4870x2 Crossfire X. And its certainly not intended to be used on 1680x1050 as you will see through this review!
[BREAK=Specifications & Info]
Some Specifications (Nvidia)
Processor Cores 240
Graphics Clock 602 MHz
Processor Clock 1296 MHz
Texture Fill Rate 48.2 billion/sec
Memory Specs:
Memory Clock 1107 MHz
Standard Memory Config 1GB GDDR3
Memory Interface Width 512-bit
Memory Bandwidth 141.7 GB/sec
The 512bit interface is what we have always been talking about and the GT200 brings it into usage.
Some More information and Pictures from Hardware Secrets.
With 1.4 Billion transistors GT200 is almost 4 times the die size compared to a dual core penryn chip!!
[BREAK=Contents]
The EVGA GTX 280 comes with the following in the box,
The Card itself ,
Installation disk with EVGA Precision,
1 6 Pin PCI-E power cable,
1 8 Pin PCI-E power cable,
DVI to VGA Adaptor,
DVI to HDMI Interface,
Documentation for setting up the card in various configurations i.e. SLI/TRI SLI,
And the new EVGA bezel sticker!
The packaging & Content that Evga offers definitely stands out!
[BREAK=More Pictures]
[BREAK=Test Bench & Methodology]
The following system was used for the benchmarks
Hardware -
3 x EVGA GTX 280 SSC @ 648Mhz (Core) / 1404Mhz (Shaders) / 2322Mhz (Memory)
Processor : QX9650 3.0Ghz @ 4.0GHz (400x10)
Motherboard: EVGA 780i FTW
Memory : OCZ 2x2GB FLEX II 1150 @ 800Mhz 4-3-3-8 2T
Monitor : Samsung 216BW 22" Maximum Resolution 1680x1050
PSU : Corsair 1000HX 1000W PSU
Software -
Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate x64 with SP1
Nvidia Forceware 177.83
Games Used in the Review were : GRID, Oblivion, Crysis & Unreal Tournament 3
3D Mark Vantage was the Synthetic benchmark used.
GRID & Oblivion were tested using FRAPS. Unreal Tournaement was benched using this
Crysis was benched using the Crysis Benchmark Tool (1.0.0.5).
3D Mark Vantage was benched with Phys X enabled.
[BREAK=GRID]
So enough talking, lets present some numbers.
GRID is the latest Racing game from Codemasters. It has a number of events, along with a lot of Cars to race with. Its based entirely on circuit racing, unlike Need for speed (before pro street) based on street racing. The game looks spectacular with all settings, enabled. The circuits are very detailed and car damage is very realistic!
One of the biggest problems that I faced while benching was to redo the same sequence again. The game is very dynamic and hence to reproduce the same run again manually, is a pain. I tried my best to do all the runs as close as possible, I tried not run into cars or any of the objects in the Track. I raced with a 350Z in the 3rd Sponsor event in Japan. The test was done using FRAPS with a 60 second timer.
The in game settings were maxed out, and the game was tested with 16XQSAA and 8XQSAA enabled from within the game, 16XAF was enabled from the Nvidia control panel.
It can be seen here that SLI is performing better than TRI SLI at the maximum resolution of my computer. The gains from a single card to SLI are much more prominent i.e we see a 42% increase in performance here at 16XQSAA.
[BREAK=Oblivion]
The Elder Scrolls IV : Oblivion is a RPG and was launched in March 2006, even being 2 years old it is still able to stress graphics hardware. Back in the day when it was launched it could comfortably be called as the Crysis of its time
. The game is play is fluid and very detailed. And the visuals can be easily compared with the latest RPGs. The environment in Oblivion is dynamic with a lot of rendering being done on the screen. The version benched was 1.2.0.416, the settings preset used was Ultra High, and all settings in game were maxed as well. The game was tested with 16XQAA and 8XQAA with 16XAF (from the Nvidia Control Panel) and HDR enabled from in game. Oblivion was also tested with FRAPS, I loaded a saved game from a point in the Game when I have just come out of the Prision Sewers. I start running towards a point in the game where I have to go through water and then some grass. I tried to make sure that the run was close in all runs.
The Oblivion results did come out weird, I saw the best results with a single 280, and I had no performance increase with SLI or TRI SLI. It seems even with the processor on 4Ghz the cards are bottlenecked!
[BREAK=Unreal Tournament 3]
Unreal Tournament 3 by Epic Games is a FPS game with multiplayer support. It was launched for PC in November last year. Many games use the UT3 engine. The UT3 engine is able to pull up some really good visuals without stressing the system a lot.
I used the Unreal Tournament 3 Benchmark tool for benchmarking the game. The performance settings were maxed to 5 each and the game was tested in DX 10. AA and AF were applied from the Nvidia Control Panel. I used DM - Shangrila Fly from the benchmark tool for the tests.
We again see the same trend as we saw with GRID, the SLI results are the best, even bettering TRI SLI results. The jump from a single card to SLI is there but is not as much as what we saw in GRID.
[BREAK=Crysis]
Crysis by Crytek, has been one of the most talked about games in the recent past. Crysis has very comfortably been able to pull down fps in teen's with the latest and greatest hardware coming out ever since its launch. Even the fastest GPU offering by Nvidia is slaughtered by this game on my 2 MP display. But that doesn't mean that the game is badly coded (many would disagree), once you look at the visuals, the performance drop is justified!
I used the Crysis Benchmarking Tool, with game patched up to 1.2.1. The game was benched on V.High settings with no tweaks or config files. AA was applied through the benchmark tool.
Here we see the best scaling in all the games so far. Crysis is able to push the three configurations to its knees.We see a 58% increase in performance going from a single card to SLI in 16XQAA and then a 27% gain adding the 3rd Card. With no AA the system seems to be getting cpu bottlenecked in TRI SLI. However going from a single card to dual we see a good 72% improvement!
[BREAK=3D Mark Vantage]
Vantage is the latest installment from Futuremark, it is considered as the finest synthetic benchmark, but then I use the word synthetic. It does give some good insight about a system.
Here I do the benchmark in Performance preset. All other settings are on default.
[BREAK=Overclocking, Sound effects & the heater!]
Like most Nvidia cards, the GTX 280 overclocks pretty good. The stock clocks on the EVGA GTX 280 SSC are 648/1404/1161, I was able to take the cards to 725/1458/1325 (core/shader/memory), which were my highest stable overclocks. Those clocks are pretty significant considering the stock card is clocked 602 on the core (20% Overclock). And for the SSC its a 12% overclock. The vantage scores did show a decent rise in all three configs.
I usually keep my cards at 80% fan speed while playing games as I dont want the auto cooling to kick in the higher fan speed until I helplessly see my cards reach 80C, with 80% fan speed I have never seen my cards go past 74C, thats with hours of gaming.
At those speeds the 3 Cards do become noisy, and if unless you have loud speakers or headphones the sound may bother you.
Another good use that the TRI SLI can be put to would be heating the room in winters, lol literally the system used to heat up my room significantly in almost an hours time after playing games. However when in 2D the cards did remain cool, thanks to Nvidia super low 2d clocks (which did create a fiasco before 177.79).
[BREAK=Conclusion]
After staying with TRI SLI for almost 2 weeks, it was heavenly but with a pinch of salt. As could be seen the cards, if not pushed dont really show their power, the only game that could really push the cards was Crysis and that too on 16XQAA.
Such power can only be recommended for people playing on 30" 5Mp (2500x1600) displays, cause any other resolution and the cards wont scale beyond SLI.
However 280 SLI was much different, more often than not the cards scaled decently. The reason we couldn't see much higher scaling was the resolution for which the cards were tested on. I would say even on 1920x1200 the cards would see much better scaling.
And having seen the results I can happily recommend anybody to get a single 280 for 1680x1050 as it can handle any and every game you can throw at it for that resolution, and if we take out crysis I would think a 280 SLI should be good enough for all the way to the max resolution people can game on!
The cards dont come cheap but they do perform as well. I would always go with a single fast gpu than getting 2 slower gpu's to equal that. But if the price difference is significant, then it does become interesting.
ATI gave us some really great cards this summer, bringing Nvidia back to their senses. Good competition always keeps the market healthy for consumers.
Its almost 5 in the morning here, and I'll keep the review till here, I'll try to add some more info tomo, but please feel free to comment or criticize. This is the biggest review I have written so far, and I dont expect it to be perfect!
Pros :
* the best money can buy
* 1Gb Memory with 512Bit bus does make it future proof for texture intensive games
* Power Consumption has been well balanced for Idle clocks!
* Overclockers delight (doesn't require fancy coolers to overclock well)
* Powerful stock cooling does the job well
Cons
* Costly
* No DX 10.1
* Power hungry!
